Last Friday I tried applying a patch to this sites server but it failed, causing IIs/SharePoint not to work. I had successfully applied the patch to a virtual version of the server but that virtual server didn’t match the historic environment of the live server (built in January 2004), it only matched the SharePoint site content. There was no rollback option for the patch and the SharePoint uninstall process wouldn’t run. Thank goodness for stsadm backups and my desktop PC.

I threw a spare HDD into my desktop PC and in 6 hours had installed WsK3R2, SQL Server, WSSv2 (to support my old site), MOSS Beta 2 and restored the site content for both sites. Thanks to Fulton at Intergen, I managed to swap out the wssdemo.com server for the desktop PC over the weekend as I was flying out of my home town first thing Monday morning.

Now I have some time to rebuild the server, well I don’t have the time but will somehow get it done, and hope the SharePoint Technical refresh will be released publicly soon so that I can include that on the server before swapping out my desktop PC.