I just inhereted a Dell server with windows server 2003 enterprise edition on it. I already have a webserver & FTP server which i do use frequently. I was wondering what i could use this server for. Now before everybody jumps all over me with 5,000 suggestions i wanted to ask two specific questions. 1. Does enterprise have a built in VPN server function? 2. How would i use this server to 'host' application to those on my network? For example, microsoft word, excel, etc. Any suggestions or links to articles would be helpful. Thanks very much in advance, everyone here is always helpful!

Hopefully you got the original cd's. It might be a problem if you don't. To be correct, almost every bit of information that you would need is on the MS site (somewhere). They have how-to's, recorded tutorials, technet docs, virtual servers, and a ton of other info. Your system also has some pretty good info under the help and support pages. To answer you question yes, it most likely can be configured for a very secure VPN. Not sure if you can load applications in terminal server mode. Kind of depends on CALs and what may be there already. You can still use things like xammp, 2X terminal server and other tools that are not from MS. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10

1. RRAS 2. You would do a network install of the application. If it's capable of being installed that way, it would allow users to connect to it and use it. The only way to find out if a particular piece of software can be installed like that is to research the application. Information on that should be contained in it's helpfiles or available from the manufacturer's web site.