Best Practices

• Verify that your hardware is supported.

• Stick to using the recommended or better hardware and software requirements.

• Make sure you document your server configuration information and perform a backup of any data that you want to keep.

• Test your applications for compatibility before migration.

• Use a consistent naming convention to name the servers and client machines.

• Use only Internet-standard characters in your computer name. This would include the letters AZ (upper- and lowercase), the numbers 09, and the hyphen (-).

• Periodically verify that system backups can be used to recover a system in a lab environment.

• Use the regular formatting option to perform a true format.

• Use NTFS to create an efficient and secured filesystem.

• If you are not sure which licensing mode to use for your environment, select Per Server.

• Rename the Administrator account, for the sake of security, after you complete the installation.

• Automate installation by using deployment tools such as RIS, Sysprep, RIPrep, Unattend files, and Group Policy (with SMS).

• Choose and install Windows 2003 R2 components to a server to take advantage of new capabilities built in to Windows 2003.