Small Business Server Without Being a Domain Controller

[Neko]

Ok, here's a good one for you all;

Recently set up a Windows 2003 SBS box at work. Bit of an adventure for a non-IT-support type, but all seemed to go well, got SQL and IIS running happily, everything was fine for a week. Then I started noticing that the machine was turning itself off for no very good reason. Not just occasionally, but hourly. Time to investigate. Event Log gave me the happy little error:

Quote:The server was shut down because it did not comply with the EULA. For more information, contact Microsoft.

Nice. Revealing.

Bit of googling later, and it turns out that the SBS license doesn't allow the server to run unless it is a (the, even) domain controller.

Well guess what? We don't have a domain! Nor am I prepared to lever one in because frankly I can't be arsed. Time for a dirty hack.

I noticed that the shutdown was triggered by one SBCore service, so off I went to kill it off. However, seems that service can't be stopped nor disabled using Services manager in Control Panel! MS really don't want you turning it off it seems.

Yeah, like that'll stop me. Here's how to disable it:

Quote:- Use Process Explorer to 'suspend' sbscrexe.exe
- Give Administrators permissions to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SBCore (and child nodes) and change the 'Start' DWORD from 2 to 4
- Deny the Everyone group all access to C:\WINDOWS\system32\sbscrexe.exe
- In Process Explorer kill sbscrexe.exe - it shouldn't restart
- services.msc should now show SBS Core Services as disabled

Instructions found at http://blog.johnkelly.co.uk

And there ya go. Hopefully no more restarts.

This is a little dodgy since it's not technically following the EULA, but in my case I'm not doing it to run multiple SBS servers, nor to have another domain controller, nor to connect more than 5 clients; I just don't want to be told that I must have a domain.

[Techmonkey]

Nice little hack Neko

I have only just started using SBS as we always had full blown server, I have to say it is an excellent addition for a small business and really make tasks simple and easy.

SBS2008 is even better and make setting up your domain a doddle