Hi Everyone,

We're currently looking at purchasing the Win based control panel HostingController 2002 which is in beta.

Can anyone share their experiences with it? Good, bad? What about support? I've checked their forums and there isn't really much there, some questions are replied to the same day and some not for a day or two, is this typical of them or do they respond faster via email?

Thanks!

Mike

Mike, HC 2002 should be an ok product once it is finished. Two things that I can say at this point, you don't want to run the current beta in production, and the upgrade from 1.4.1 is not quick and simple (unless the next beta version improves this). The next Beta of 2002 is due March 30, but I would not hold my breath on it, they tend not hit their dates very good. Who knows when the final release will be.

Are far as the product goes, it is not bad, the new plan functionality is a nice improvement. The current version tends to have minor problems, little things that don't make it unusable, but are annoying. For some reason any domain with mail setup on it does not get deleted from their database correctly if your delete the domain. It removes the IIS site and the mail domain, but just doesn't clean up after itself in it's own database. This doesn't happen if they domain didn't get setup with mail. If you click properties for the domian, it will recognize that it is no longer real and give you an option to delete it. The first beta is riddled with problems, to the point where it is unusable beyond testing and learning.

So it is not a bad tool, but personnaly we have embarked on writing our own tool, but will use HC until ours is ready.

Good Luck,

Thanks for the info!

Keep me posted on your development if you can. Finding a decently priced full featured CP for Win 2k has really been a pain!

Regards,

Mike

Originally posted by MikeAch
Finding a decently priced full featured CP for Win 2k has really been a pain!

Exactly, but don't wait on us, our solution will be pretty much what we need to start with. Our plan however is to expand it in the future to rival HC's breadth of tools. Which is why they are really the #1 for Win2k, they have most of the top tools defined already. Unforetunately the glue that holds it all together is a little weak.

Later,

Hello,
We have used Hosting Controller for some time and have never been pleased with it. Major problems almost all the time. HTe servers never seemed to be stable and sites disappear from IIS misteriously. We have since switch to Hspere which is running beautifully. THe NT server has a 32 days uptime right now. Never got more than a wekk or so before wothout needing to reboot. Whats great about hspere is it supports both unix and windows and spreads the load out with clustering which is great for expanding later. Well just thought I would let you know that.
In my opinion hosting Controller is a waste of time and money as you will buy ontoher control panel once you hate that one enough

Thanks for the info. Doesn't Hspere require a linux box? If it does, it won't work for us right now. Right now we're strictly windows just because I haven't had time to sit down with linux and go through the learning curve.

Thanks for the info!

Mike

Yes you do use a unix box to handle your mail and such. We used freebsd and did a basic install and hsphere did the rest. its ectremely stable and their support is awesome.