Use a VM if you need to. Grab an external drive, install Virtual Server and run SS2K5 in there.

Also, are you having issues on the cluster, or are you looking into what these messages mean.

Are there failovers happening?

I agree with Grant. you could remove the CAST and functions (look up the ID first), but that shouldn't cause a huge problem on any machine.

Even a big server,...

Vista is stable. I only run a few things on it and use it for video editing, but it runs well. Just slow. I have 4GB of RAM, no Aero...

My apologies if this appears to be whining. I'd prefer to think of it as stumping 😛

Support and bugs are both a problem and constant issue. I think it's important...

You can post suggestions, issues, etc. here. We'll see them in the forum and respond as well as add to our bug tracker.

Vista is a change and I could deal with all the changes, the UAC isn't too bad, but it's slow. That's my biggest complaint. It just slows me down, as...

These are mainly leftover from years ago. People used to back up to tape directly on each server and the append was there to ensure you didn't overwrite the tape.

Now...

If it's just cache, then execute it a few times to warm the cache. You can use a job to do this.

If it's parameters, I'm not sure what you can...

Not that I know of.

Flip through the backup scripts in the site here. There are lots to do what you want, or close to it.

The 10 year old comment has some value. If you're working for 10 years and doing a good job, the degree (or military commission) doesn't matter. It might open some...

Disclosure: I work for Red Gate.

I think both of these products are nice. I haven't used Red Gate's (don't manage servers now), and I haven't used Litespeed since v3 (Imceda),...

I'd do what Andras selected.

If you're on the server, there is a certain amount of backup history kept as well that you can query in msdb.

Sounds like you're missing some DLLs, maybe a corrupt installation