Things always go wrong (for me at least) on Fridays. Just ordered a Windows 2003 Web Edition with Plesk/Celeron 2.0/2x80Gb HD.

Decided I didn't like Plesk and wanted to uninstall. Couldn't see anything within the Control Panel/Add Remove programs to uninstall - couldn't see anything within the Programs group either. Therefore I disable the Plesk services in the Services manager. I install MDaemon as my mail server of choice and find that it doesn't work - the service has started but can't access pop or smtp from it. No GUI either.

I try to find IIS to see what sort of state that's in - again, I can't see it. Try to add a new service within IIS and I only get the choice of an NNTP server, yet IIS IS installed.

The only way out of this nightmare is to do a re-image which is not something I particularly wanted to do and so have therefore cancelled the server. A nice $158 to EV1 for not doing too much work - the server will go back into the order pool shorly, no doubt.

I think I'll stick to Linux - at least I know what I'm doing.

Regards,

Martyn

Cancel it on the last day of your billing cycle; that way you can receive 29 days of total frustration for your $158. Don't feel bad, I did the same thing with CPanel.

I just don't understand how Plesk can be so tightly integrated into Windows like that. I should have ordered the standard Windows Web edition, but somehow didn't.

The bad thing is that it isn't as though I can afford to lose $158 at the moment either.. . I'm giving serious consideration to moving away from EV1 anyway (I already have a Linux box here) - to do something completely different. Having you own server is nice, but when things go wrong it can be expensive..

Regards,

Martyn

Have you contacted anyone directly about this matter? You can email me at websales_aaronc@ev1.net or you can email Mario, the head of Customer Service, at osc@ev1.net.

We will be glad to help you sort through this.

Dale from customer services has kindly offered a free restore and things have been good (and I undid my cancellation) until I've locked myself out of the server thanks to the Visnetic Firewall . Another trouble ticket submitted.

I've noticed that with the Web edition that when I run IIS Management Console that IIS isn't actually available. What's happened to it? I thought that it might have something to do with Plesk, but having had the server reimaged from a plain Web Edition install the problem still remains..

I've also noticed that applications don't seem to like be accessed through the toolbar/taskbar (right hand corner by the clock). Visnetic and MDaemon are being particularly troublesome and it's making it VERY difficult to configure these services (hence why I flaming well locked myself out). Never experienced this problem with Windows 2003 Standard or Enterprise

I'm still considering cancellation, unfortunately, as it seems that the Web Edition is about as much use as a dead dodo. I'm surprised Microsoft allowed this to be released. I've had no problems with Standard or Enterprise trials that I've played with here - everything seems fine with them.

Why me?

Regards,

Martyn

And I've just managed to lock myself out of the server thanks to Visenetic - AGAIN!

The things I want to do to the server and Microsoft right now are unprintable - I never had this problem with Linux. Perhaps this is telling me something, i.e. stick with what you know.

Gah!

Regards,

Martyn

One tip on the firewall, set the firewall to allow all traffic when not enabled and set the service to start manually. This way you can just reboot and be back in without any effort.

Vinnie,

Thanks. I've just re-installed from scratch and did what you've suggested and all seems just fine now. MDaemon is running (although I have to use the Ghost function in it's Program Group to be able to see it's local GUI).

Still need to resolve the IIS issue (i.e. where has it gone?) - but other than that, things seem to be getting better.

My thanks to all for putting up with my moans, whinging and tantrums. Particularly thanks to the engineers and Dale at Customer services too.

No doubt will have more questions, but hopefully that'll be the end of the trouble tickets for a while

Regards,

Martyn

With regards to my IIS problem - looks like I might be suffering from the same thing these guys are:

http://forum.ev1servers.net/showthread.php...&threadid=43123

If this is the case, perhaps EV1 might want to look at re-creating a new image that has IIS properly installed. Can't possibly describe the frustration this has caused trying to figure out why IIS isn't working along with all the other stuff that's happened

My server is now demanding the Win 2003 WE CD-ROM so that it can re-install the IIS components again - YATTS (yet another trouble ticket submitted). You guys must be sick of me by now

Regards,

Martyn