Windows Server - How do you run yours ?

[Mick]

I have setup a Windows Server as a Domain controller.

I will be honest I am a novice when it comes to windows and windows server administration, just wondered if you guys / experts had some advice about the best practices and must haves for a small office environment...

Currently We have 4 users setup including myself as the administrator and myself as a user from home (with some admin functions), it is a little complicated as I also have my home connected to the office with a permanent VPN using two Drayteks. (this works very well infact).

Also I did manage to setup dropbox on the server and sync the work folders and then share them using the windows server folder sharing - not sure if I have this 100% setup correctly.

I am in two minds about buying extra office licences (per machine) or paying the office 360 monthly user costs???

Can i buy a virus software that will run on the server and scan all PC's on the domain or is that silly?

All suggestions and ideas would be very well received and much appreciated.

Thank you.

Mick

 

[Peter1287]

You Have to Install an Anti-Virus App on every PC.
Eset Software is good.
You can install it on every PC via GPO

 

[Mick]

Thank you Peter, I currently run Microsoft essentials and malware bytes (paid) on all them.

I also found that Dropbox will not sync it needs to be run as a service, so I bought a software that allows Dropbox to run as a service and update itself... I think it was about 40 dollars ... Can't remember the name but it's fantastic!

I'll post the name of it tomorrow.

Cheers
Mick

 

[rapha]

Firstly, sorry for the way the below is formatted as I just wanted to get the essentials across without having to elaborate too much, if you need any detail about the points I raise just ask.

You could consider running Microsoft sync manager on the clients, this allows for offline access to the sever data files. But I suppose it all depends if the workforce are out on the road and do they take their laptops with them or are they more office desk bound? Also what volume of data are they working with, if it's only a small volume then dropbox is ok but anything large then you might have think of doing the above.
So many scenarios it just depends on what type of business you run.
Regarding anti virus programs and permissions. If you set yourself up on a client machine and then give that client full admin access by using your server credentials this is asking for trouble. If a crypto virus get loaded on your client machine then your giving the virus full access to destroy all the server data. I have witness this many times.
Remember not to grant permissions to folders unnecessary that way the virus can only damage what they have access to and also consider setting up shadow copies on the shared drive/folder on the server so it stores copies twice daily - another life saver.
And finally get the server data backed up on a daily basis. RDX drives (as an example) or if data is under 10GB use a cloud based solution, the first push will be chore but after that incremental backups shouldn't take to much bandwidth and time to do.