Hi I been having a heck of an issues with dell. I am working with a client that just purchased a Dell Poweredge T110. They are decommissioning an old server and was hoping to use the Server 2003 Standard software that it came with. The only problem is when I try to do it dells way it requests for Server 2003 R2. If I try to just install it without doing it dells way it runs the CD on boot and starts to load everything but when it says "Starting Windows" it locks up. I did download a copy of Server 2003 R2 off of the microsoft website but the code for my standard will not work. From what I understand it is practically the same as standard only with a service pack. This one did make it all the way up to the product code but it didn't like it. So the main things I am asking is there any way that I can get the standard code to work with the R2? Is there a way to get my copy of server to install on it if not? I called them and some reason they said it only supports R2. Any help would be great.

You need to contact Dell to get the correct version of Dell bootable CD. Also, you might be using the different type of CD key (OEM, Volume, TechNet etc..) Santhosh Sivarajan | MCTS, MCSE (W2K3/W2K/NT4), MCSA (W2K3/W2K/MSG), CCNA, Network+ Houston, TX http://blogs.sivarajan.com/ http://publications.sivarajan.com/ This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Thanks for the reply but tried that. They told me that it will only work with standard. Also the copy that I have is an OEM copy. Is the Microsoft one a VL?

Hi, It depends. The copy you downloaded from Microsoft’s site are VL or Retail. I recommend that you contact Dell to get the further support. Thanks for your understanding. Best Regards, Vincent Hu

Your standard code should run irrespective of the windows server 2003 versions. I havent seen any specific coding done only for R2 , so it should not be any difference for managed or unmanged code running either on 2003 or R2.