Introduction

Although most people are somewhat familiar with PCs and their uses and basic operations, that PC that is sitting on your desk, at home in your den, or collecting dust in your backpack is just a small part of the world of computing. The really down and dirty, heavy-duty computing tasks are performed by servers. A server is to a PC what an 18-wheeler is to a Toyota. For the light, quick work performed by individuals, a PC will do, but when you need heavy-duty tasks to service multiple users, you need a server!

In this chapter, we will take a look at the different members of the Windows Server 2003 family and perform a basic installation of our first server.