My first week of days and nights moving a few ASP and ASP.NET sites to W2K3 now concludes and I can't help but compare my experience of using Windows 2003 with post 9/11 Airport Security changes. I like a lot of things about W2K3 Server and feel good (and thankful) to be using it. But incident after incident of bumping into new security changes in W2K3 has been the biggest pain of my migration experience, as it is similarly a pain in my flying experience.
Post 9/11 in the airport there are additional and longer lines, new dufuses in white shirts trying to appear as if they perform some security function, random body searches when you never know when you're going to get tagged and some INS fellow sporting a crew-cut gives your genitals the brush. You never know when its going to happen, like you never know when you're going to get nailed in W2K3 for trying to do something you were able to do painlessly in W2K. Additional settings and checkboxes in W2K3 are the white shirts ambling about the boarding area waiting to annoy you.
But at the end of the flying day or computing day, what has changed? Really? As a developer (or flyer), there is just more crap to do to get to where you want to go. But at the end of the day you still end up at the same place.
I'm sure lots of folks want to ream me for dissing the new W2K3 security features. I'm in no position to question the array of security restrictions in W2K3. Smarter guys than me thought they were a good idea. Hey, I'm just saying that to me, using W2K3 is like post 9/11 Airport Security.