Restoring Windows XP Pro from HP Restore Plus!

True to the name of this blog, I bring perhaps the stupidest tech trick of all. Today I was forced to rebuild an HP Pro 3005 MT due to a malware infection. After booting off of the restore DVD I was presented with only Windows 7 as a restore option. Frustrated, I rebooted with the HP provided Windows XP Pro media and inserted the restore plus media when requested. This eventually worked until I was prompted to enter the serial number for XP. Needless to say the Windows 7 COA code did not work so I called HP support.

Turns out that the option to restore Windows XP was there all along but since there was no scroll slider in the window I assumed it was only allowing Windows 7 to be installed. Clicking the down arrows provided the necessary selection to install XP Professional from the restore routine which does not require serial numbers.

The Ultimate Guide to SBS 2008 Setup Failures.

Thanks to our friends over at The Official SBS Blog, we now have the ultimate guide to SBS 2008 setup failures.

During my first and only SBS 2003 to SBS2008 migration I was lucky enough to encounter one of the errors mentioned and was fortunate to find this post over at brute force technology to save the day. Just look at the comments! It is amazing just how much can go wrong during a migration...

With that all said, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that I will most likely never have to work with the steaming pile of crap that is small business server, ever again. For the rest of you, I hope the links provided come in handy.