One of the problems with trying to support people in the forums and newsgroups is that often in order to help you have to have experienced the same problems and got out of them.

Mostly I've installed WSS 3.0 on Windows Server 2003 and apart from a problem with the Windows Firewall unexpectedly causing access problems when I used R2 (but never before with the initial version of Windows Server 2003) everything has gone smoothly and I could probably do it in my sleep.

Installations on Windows 2008 I've only done (until recently) a couple of times. Twice maybe in the beta phase of that product and once for the Appendix of my book. All these three went fine but looking back after yesterday's experiences that was no doubt because I was doing those installations and nothing else.

Yesterday, however, I was back in "I can do this in my sleep" mode and while doing something else on another machine I installed Windows Server 2008. The results of that in pass one was that I managed to specify that unknown password that I mentioned yesterday because I typed in my usual (Finnish keyboard) password in a system that thought I had a US keyboard.

Oddly enough there I had (in my sleep!) managed to create an Administrator and give him a strong password (including that unknown character) so the installation completed with the WSS 3.0 default web site appearing as usual.

The second pass however I concentrated a bit more (although obviously not enough) and this time changed the keyboard very quickly - noting however that this was by no means as straightforward and is no longer part of the main installation process of the Operating System as it is in Windows Server 2003.

What I however didn't manage to do was create an Administrator with a strong password even though at one point during the installation there was a text (in minute letters!) saying the before you proceed make sure you have a strong password for Administrator.

So Administrator hadn't got a password at all and when the WSS 3.0 default site was due to appear it refused to do so. (This may also have something to do with the fact that I was using the account (walshmi) the system had prompted me to create and not as usual the Adminstrator account - excuse: that didn't have a strong password!)

Now this kind of problem is something that has been reported with Windows Server 2008 and I've always had the feeling "it's always worked for me" and just moved on. Now it seems that I might have a chance to, if not solve each problem, at least show some sympathy.

The question however remains "how come it's worked every time before?".

The answer to that is that on earlier runs I probably did at least one re-boot. If you do a re-boot and attempt to log-in as Administrator then it will demand that you specify a password. Once you've done that you (hopefully) have the strong password the system demands for the next phase AND you will not be tempted to use an other account than Administrator for the WSS 3.0 installation phase.

It's all very simple really.

But I'm still annoyed that a Windows Server 2008 is - in these respects at least - so much more difficult than a Windows Server 2003 installation ...