Windows IT Admin Tools in lOOkOUT

[mke]

hiya all,
i just started as a newbie IT admin on a fairly new company. I am just trying now to figure out best software for the job as I am ordering a new desktop the next day and basically re-arranging the whole company it structure.
Basically am the only one on the department and will be responsible for a heck lot of things.
Currently we run a 2003 server for our exchange mail soft, and payroll departments soft. Also there is a win 2000 server for the other crm and logistics software we have in place. Most enduser workstations run vista, some still xp.
Now my query is what software would be ideal to use from your experience in an environment with less than 40-50 users/pc's.
I was thinking of having win xp sp3 and some linux distro to dual boot on my own private system. thereafter some managing/monitoring softs to use, which am not sure what the best choice would be. (any advice/recommendations????
We have yet no fancy network equipment like cisco or 3com/juniper... just an unmanaged dlink gigabit switch and some patch panels...

any other advice much much appreciated
thanks

 

[DelJo63]

more process comments than software recommendations.

1) work in piece-mill fashion and perform successive refinements rather than performing ANY all-or-nothing actions. eg:

work on one subnet at a time rather than the whole network redesign,
work on a small department first and them move to others​

2) test any all deployments and MS updates on a selected 'victim' before you inflict the whole infrastructure to a massive change

3) even if possible to update everyone, DON'T. Schedule updates by groups, one each evening.

 

[Badfinger]

Don't forget:

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

 

[mke]

Hiya and thanks for your replies.
well the whole network is kinda broken and am kinda new fresh outa uni having the whole department to make from scratch... e.g. for instance there are no users set, all use the same pass or no password... also noone has e-mail accounts, all have 2-3 shared emails from some ppl that worked there 2-3 years ago.
By monday/tuesday am hoping to have finished 50% of gathering systeminfo (e.g. wimc get product name, version, vendor,.... and outpout that on txt, then create some form of either excel or a small mysql db on my system to know what is what and where is what. dunno if that is the best approach but i think its one of the first tasks i should make.
any pointers to that much appreciated (i'll buy 10 rounds of beer on my first paycheck if u are in greece ;p)

as a next step am doing the inventory on the companys old(and some new, but mostly really old..) IT equipment. again thinkin excel or mysql since no standard is set there yet..

after that would be logical to update that list with current versions of all that soft, more than 200 (maybe in a year time ifi find time i would write a script to automate the updates to that ....) dunno. I am really confused in that place, its like chaos...

the old admin is missing that created this monstrus creation, leaving nothing but a mess and i have to find a way around this. so i have no info / notes / nada/zip nothing to point too and direct. also am not sure how to efficiently deploy or test a system in such an environment, and kinda spooked since its my *** in the line.

anymore recommendations / ideas and sympathies much welcomed since today was one of my worst days for ages at work...

thanks by they way for ur replies, will keep them in mind, actually i have copied them in a notepad so i can allong with other ideas organise my self.

byez for now

 

[DelJo63]

For Software audit, google WinAudit

For Network audit see Network Audit Toolkit