James has been a valuable voice for me on this board.
I have every reason to believe that I would have been much better off to go with him from the beginnng, but I wanted to support our local guys. Not always the best plan.

Funny thing is, I never heard that SQL server and domain controller should not be on the same machine -- not until this flap about not supporting SQL12, and not even for a month or more after they first annouced the "simple" plug and play upgrade they first rolled out! I don't think their IT guys had any inkling that some people had the SQL and the DC on the same box.

Also, when I moved from a simple peer-to-peer network to an earlier version of Server Express there were a lot of voices on the internet touting it as the cat's pajamas for small practices. It seemed to work fine, then.

When I upgraded to Server 16 and had the local guys set it up, they said nothing about virtualization or putting the SQL server on a different box. I did discover that they had it all set up so they would "maintain the network" for about $1000/ month -- at which time I said thank you very much and just kept it going myself.

My issue with cost is that Medicare, Medicaid and most insurance companies decide how much to pay doctors based on a formula that includes the cost of office overhead -- but the formulas were derived in a pre-IT era, and despite rosy promises, IT has not reduced overhead or increased efficiency in small family practices -- to the contrary it has INCREASED the overhead by quite a lot. Since we can't charge more for the increse in overhead, we just take home less.

I would hire James in a heartbeat if I weren't so close to the end. At this point I am just limping along, 5 months to go!

Thanks to everyone on this board. AC has been interesting and sometimes fun. I pity the poor souls who are under the yoke of EPIC.