I have a client with a pizza restaurant, she wanted to upgrade her old server, and a couple of her satellite pos machines. The server is a old windows 2000 server machine I cloned her HD, and tried a direct upgrade to server 2003 via trial edition to see if it would work out on the new machine, works alright, except the printers.. the old computer is using one of these i didn't use drivers for it, but windows had drivers so i just went along with it.. its hooked up to infared printers and registers from the kitchen to the front cashiers basically all the com ports changed with the new hardware, and the most i could get working was a front cash register printer, but it was still having issues (maybe cause i was using windows2000 drivers) [Epson t88II] is there anyway i can make it so com ports stay the same? even if i move the pci card from the old computer to the new one?? and the printers use some kind of weird parallel to ethernet connector, all going into the com port, and the cash registers seem to have those parallel to ethernet connectors as well, but it has a software that can assign them ip, etc and they both are used by LPT 1.. also is it recommended maybe i just migrate windows 2000 server to the new hardware? right now i tried the print migrator to 2003, and now windows is all buggy :/
I feel for you buddy. Putting old crap on newer hardware is one of my least favorite things in the whole world to attempt. There's always at least a work around, but sometimes it aint a pretty one.
I have never done an upgrade of a server OS, hell I won't even do it for a desktop. And for exactly the reasons you listed, shit never works right. But yeah, fresh hardware is the right answer. Why is she even bothering to upgrade the OS at all? Sooner rather than later the box will die, and then what is she going to do? Anyway, that cash register system might have all sorts of manual configuration steps, or compatibility problems. Not sure what her temperament is, but sounds like you are over your head and should restore her drive and back off.
restored her old system, got everything but the printers, shes scary as hell cash register wise, their just standalone print servers basically and the cash drawer has a signal cable if i could just get the damned com ports to be the same as pci, it would work out, everything else, including their pos program seems to work alright
See, this is one reason why new hardware is genius. You set up the new system, test after hours, no impact on the business while you work out the bugs, etc. And then when you're ready you just swap 'em. Did she at least have some compelling reason for upgrading the OS?
somewhat, normally you would have to reformat but i made the hardrive controllers work via hirens she just wanted to upgrade the OS so its faster and more solid as her server has been slow and freezing up alot (needs more ram) and 2003 does appear to be more stable and faster, and also closer to XP which is what the new pos software version is accustomed for, but if anything i'll just install 2000 server or clone it back, cause the driver and printer issues, unless there is a way to keep COM ports, even when hardware is switched
