Andy Yiu’s Blog

Windows 2008 Server…first looks installing Domino and Sametime

The Windows Server 2008 package for x86 architectures finally showed up on the MSDN site last week. I finally got some time over the weekend to install this in a VMWare environment. Since Windows Server 2008 had adopted many of the features available in Microsoft Windows Vista and there is definitely a learning curve. Some of the aspects which have been adopted are the security architecture and the Windows Activation wizard. Overall, the operating system seems to startup quicker and run quicker. However once you get into the operating system, everything changes.

Activation Wizard

The Windows activation wizard has chanced and Microsoft has assigned a product key which is valid for three days. This prevents users from having to provide a product key immediately during the installation process. One tip when activating windows is to go into the Server Configuration option to Change Product Key before you try and activate. This was the only way I was able to activate Windows.

Notes/Domino/Sametime

Now being a person that always wants to try the latest toys out, I decided to attempt an install of Domino and Sametime on Windows 2008 Server. This is configuration is NOT SUPPORTED, and based on the results of my attempt, I would not recommend that anyone try to install Notes, Domino or Sametime on Windows 2008 Server until it is officially supported by IBM. That being said, let me describe my results to you. Since Windows 2008 server adopted many of the security features, this means that changes will need to be made to the way Domino and Sametime operate.

When attempting to install Domino, the installer went through smoothly however launching the server configuration application was problematic. It appears that even as the administrator of the machine, Windows still requires the application to be launched manually. After launching Domino server configuration application with Administrator rights, I was able to complete the Domino configuration and carry onto the next step….launching the server. So the moment of truth comes, will the Domino server launch? The answer is yes. To launch the Domino server I had to run some of the modules in Windows 2003 compatibility mode and also set the “Run as Administrator” option. Also, once the server launches I was unable to use the “Interact with Desktop” option to see the Domino server console on the OS level. However the server console could be accessed via the Domino Administrator client.

Sametime components

After the Domino server was installed, I started my testing on the Sametime server. The Sametime install went through flawlessly again to my relief. I did get the “operating system you are installing on is not supported” message, however it did not prevent the install from proceeding. After the server was installed, I fired up domino and after several minutes all services appeared to be started. When testing, it appears that there were problems accessing meetings directly from the Windows 2008 server with Sun Java 1.5. I still need to do some additional testing to verify the other functionality.

To conclude, I would strongly recommend that any administrator out there think twice before installing Domino and Sametime on a Windows 2008 Server. It is not supported and there are definitely a few kinks (which I’m sure our development team is aware of) which need to be worked out.