First off - if I was gonna be sarcastic I sure as hell would have been a
whole bunch more sarcastic than that. What I wanted to know was if you were
in charge of maybe a junior who wanted to provide the 'silver bullet' answer
for his boss.
"I believe I have a corrupt TCP stack.... or so the Tech from Microsoft
believes"
This is based on the info below or did you supply further info to him?
"I am getting BSOD's after installing SP4 and I cant restore or roll back."
Why can you not roll back?
Error messages?
"Has anybody done this and is there much risk involved ?
I says remove the DNS, DHCP and WIN's servers,"
Not entirely certain of what you mean there?
"1/ when I reinstall the services will I have to redo the DHCP scope and
DNS
or will it be stored and automatically re configure."
Chances are that you will have to restore the DHCP & DNS - providing of
course it is hosted on that server. If not then it wont be a problem.
"2/ The previous Network guy did not keep documentation, so I don't really
know the IP's of the printers around the site, will these IP's still be
saved"
That depends on where they are hosted etc? Are they on printservers or do
they have direct TCP/IP capability?
"3/ also it says the shares will be lost... now I have over a thousand users
with shared home directories... would I have to re share ALL of these ?"
Not necessarily. If those shares are on the server you are going to be
working on then if that server has the same name and IP address then it
shouldnt be a biggie.
"4/ This little sentence scares the willies out of me "and then add back DNS
and any other components that had been previously configured"
How difficult on a scale of 1 to 10 would this be?"
Sounds like fairly high on the scale for your experience, however it is most
certainly doable.
"4/ Is there some easier way?"
Yes - find out why you can not roll back your service pack.
Ok - firstly I suggest you document EVERYTHING asap. If you are getting
blus screens then your users will be having issues and will get pissed
rapidly.
Try
http://www.aida32.hu/aida-features.php for auditing your users machines.
Next - add this site to your favourites
http://www.experts-exchange.com
Thirdly - did I say document all changes? Well do that at each and every
change.
Last - a little hint ... Never, and boy do I mean NEVER ... install a
service pack on a live machine unless you have either
1 - Tried it on a lab machine (not always possible on an equivalent server,
but a box with the same OS patched to the same level and running the same
services and apps can be a great help).
2 - Have done a full backup first.
3 - Have an option to replace or roll back that server if it all turns to
custard.
4 - Have seriously read up on any possible issues.
BTW - I would love to hear how you get on.
Russ