Decisions to Make for a New Installation | Introducing Microsoft Windows Server(TM) 2003

This list outlines the basic decisions to make for a new installation:

Which licensing modes to use.

Products in the Windows Server 2003 family support two licensing modes: Per Device or Per User and Per Server . Per Device or Per User mode requires a separate Client Access License (CAL) for each computer that accesses a server running a product in the Windows Server 2003 family. Per Server mode requires a separate CAL for each concurrent connection to a server. For more information about licensing, see the next section, "Choosing a Licensing Mode."
Whether you want to be able to choose between different operating systems each time you start the computer.

You can set up a computer so that each time you restart it, you can choose from several different operating systems. For more information, see "Installing Multiple Operating Systems" later in this chapter.
Which file system to use on the installation partition.

You can potentially choose among three file systems for an installation partition: NTFS, FAT, and FAT32. NTFS is strongly recommended in most situations. It's the only file system that supports Active Directory, which includes many important features such as domains and domain-based security. However, it might be necessary to have a FAT or FAT32 partition on a basic disk in an x86-based computer if you must set up the computer so that it sometimes runs Windows Server 2003 and sometimes runs Windows NT 4.0 or an earlier operating system. For more information, see "Choosing a File System" later in this chapter.
Which partition or volume you plan to install the operating system on.

If you are performing a new installation, review your disk partitions or volumes before you run Setup. (For an upgrade, you will use existing partitions or volumes.) Both partitions and volumes divide a disk into one or more areas that can be formatted for use by one file system. Different partitions and volumes often have different drive letters (for example, C and D). After you run Setup, you can make adjustments to the disk configuration as long as you do not reformat or change the partition or volume that contains the operating system. For information about planning the partitions or volumes for a new installation, see "Planning Disk Partitions" later in this chapter.
How to handle IP addresses and TCP/IP name resolution.

With TCP/IP, you need to make decisions about how to handle IP addressing and name resolution (the translating of IP addresses into names that users recognize). For more information, see "Configuring Networking" later in this chapter.

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