Just a heads up, There was a lot of problems running RSAT (Remote Admin GUI Tools) on Vista when interacting with 2008 R2. Windows 7 quickly became required for 2008 R2. (Windows 7 is client OS of 2008 R2)

Otherwise, rock on.

The last month or so, I've been watching a lot of clabretro's videos. If you find this sort of thing interesting (old enterprise software, and possibly the old servers/equipment that would run that software), you'll definitely like his channel! His retrorack is more from the early 2000s rather than the late 2000s, but there's probably still a good amount of cross over between what you're both doing.

https://www.youtube.com/@clabretro

I'm really pleased he's embraced long form videos showing the steps (and the failures) along the way, in the early videos you can hear he's apprehensive about if people would find it interesting in a world of short form content.

He also has really great editing where he'll sometimes show the success first if it's a long journey to keep interest and then go back through the steps he took so you can tell he's put care into the production.

I also enjoy his subtle Paul Thurrott-like jabs at himself and the problems he hits too.

It doesn’t feel that 2009 is all that far away but… 17 years ago. I remember a lot of forums during 09” in fringe commodore groups and amiga. And they still go on.

But yes 2009 was a different time, to be a sysadmin all you had to effectively know was how to reinstall an OS and drivers and you were golden.

Funny; Vista was the reason I switched to Linux as well.

Microsoft's recent track record with Windows 11 seems to have kickstarted another Win -> Linux migration wave.

dos was the reason i switched to linux. (sorry, i could not resist, i am old ;-)

What did you use before dos?