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Headless Windows 2000 Servers?

Posted by Cliff on from the riding-a-PDP11-with-a-monitor-for-a-head dept.

Ichabod Gates asks: "I have a home network with a few Windows 2000 servers that I run without monitors/keyboards/etc. the only cables attached are power and network. The servers are P200's with not enough RAM and whatever spare parts I can scrounge up for them and I admin them all using terminal services. Everything works fine and the uptimes are decent enough considering the power problems here. Due to a fixed frequency 19inch monitor, I had to shuffle video cards around till I found one that suited. This led me to attempt to remove all the unnecessary cards from the servers, just to make some spare parts available. This went fine until it became time to remove the VGA cards: the machines proceeded to boot up to the point where they would respond to ping requests, but then they'd reboot and repeat the process. I've had a reasonable search around and haven't found any definitive statement that says Windows 2000 can't run without a VGA card." What? You don't want to see the pretty GUI that Microsoft has spent billions in developing? You heathen!

"I have found a page saying that the Windows after XP will be the first to make it possible. There are expensive Compaq cards that make it possible I believe. but I think they require certain servers, and besides, my budget is $0. I am just wondering if the Slashdot community could offer any suggestions or leads?"

3 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Re:oh the contradiction by kubrick · · Score: 0, Troll

    Maybe we can combine the two.

    "Spent billions in stealing."

    Yup, that sounds about right. Expect to see me at (+5, Insightful) within minutes. :)

    --
    deus does not exist but if he does
  2. For the love of God, spend some money!! by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 3, Troll

    I can't stand these "please help me. I want to get blood from a stone" Ask Slashdots. Sometimes you have to spend some money to get things to work satisfactorily. A PC simply will not boot without a video card. Buy one for each of your servers; a nasty old one can't cost more than $5. If you can't afford $25 or so, what on earth are you doing building computers with Win2K on them to begin with? (You *did* pay for that, didn't you?)

    - A.P.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  3. Re:Remote administration of Windows? by DavidJA · · Score: 1, Troll

    and I'd just like to know what remote-administration options are built-in with Windows.

    Ok, troll. Win2k comes with a Telnet server and Terminal Services

    Termainal services allows you to have the Windows GUI remotly, just PcAnywhere, exept it does not suck.

    I have used it over a 56k link to manage remote servers, and it's performance is supprising good.