Endpoint SWAT: Protect the Endpoint Community

Apparently I need to read documentation.  I let this one slide.  I just purchased licenses for a small biz client that has a PC acting as the server, and planned to put SEPM on there.  Nope it says, has to be Server 2008 or above.  

Ok so my fault for not keeping up with the Jones apparently.  Now, is there any scenario where I can manage clients, using SEP 14.2, and not have a SEPM? I haven't yet looked into the cloud portal thing.  I have plenty of customers running SEP SBE and SEPC, but have not yet put any SEP customers' SEPM's into version 14.1 or the cloud portal or whatever it is.  

If no option exists, that sucks.  I'm willing to go with an older release of SEP while I advice my customer that I screwed up and they now need a server (or I eat the cost of SEP and just go with SEPC), or something.  

Please let me know my options, thanks!

Thanks guys.  By the way I have SEPM 14.0 RU1 MP1 running on my Windows 10 Pro box (SEPM build:  14.0.3897.1101) .here - so I have to guess that the Server OS requirement perhaps showed up with 14.1.  Either way so it's either put a server (or PC running Server) into the customer network or just go with SEPC instead, which sucks since we've already bought the licensing.  

Oh well, thanks again.  

Ok rewind here.  For fun, I just downloaded the SEPM 14.2 installer from fileconnect onto a new Win 10 Pro machine.  It installed without any errors, no prompts about OS requirements, nothing.  Yet when I had tried this same thing on the customers Win 7 Pro PC acting as server, that's when I got that error.  So did Symantec engineering forget to include the latest builds of Win 10 on the non-compatible list or something, or did thing schange and they realized they'll never sell SEP to small businesses that dont' have a server?  :) 

Respectfully it might be that people thought this thread done, so if there are no or minimal replies I might proceed to make a new thread just for visibility - would really like to know if maybe Symantec changed their mind as this is a big deal here, if I had to buy a server for the customer just to house SEPM I would not be happy but if they can just buy a Win 10 machine that's another story.  

All versions of SEP 14.x do not support the SEPM being installed on Desktop Operating Systems.

You may be able to install the SEPM, but you will not be in a supported configuration.
 

@MIXIT

For a small business, you might want to consider running SEPM in a Virtual Machine.  You will need a host with generous memory and a speedy processor.  You could run Hyper-V on a Win 10 Pro PC  or use VirtualBox on a Win 7/10 machine.  Both are free.  The ability to snapshot the VM and easily rollback is a big plus,  A recent issue saved me time and heartache because I had a snapshot before I upgraded SEPM.

You would save the cost of buying a new box but you would still need to purchase Windows server.

Hi,

SEPM 14 onwards - required hosting OS as Server Operating System(Windows Server Core Edition not supported).

First thing is to have a PC on a workgroup with server operating system.

You may try the below on a test environment with few settings and adjustments in the registry (see the below Technet forum).

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/ie/en-US/a4c9681e-7384-4ff9-bd0f-9c8b9937ef1e/wse2016-just-as-a-member-of-a-workgroup?forum=winserveressentials

If you have PC acting as the server then, you may install the Server Operating Sytem (minimum windows server 2008), but make sure the PC will meet the hardware drivers for the server software (https://www.windowsservercatalog.com/).

And ofcourse if you have Domain Controller then, there are several advantages.

I have not personally tested the above but sharing some info.

Thanks,

Hi Mixit,

If you're open to beta testing a new version of SEP, I may have something that can help.

Adam

Hi guys, sorry for no reply, it seems I only get maybe 25% or less of the alert notifications for my posts :| (and nothing goes to spam, so who knows).  

Just a quick update:  we found additional reasons to put in a server for this particular customer so the situation is salvaged for now.  But based on the excelleint into from others on here I have a template to work from should I run into this again. 

Adam: if I had time, I'd love to, but I am flying at 100% throttle these days with clients so no time sadly :( Thanks very much anyway though.  

Now, what to mark as the Answer here.  So much good info.  

So you can run Windows Server 2016 in a VM with a Win 10 Pro host?  I admit, I have yet, in all these years, to play around with client-based VM's.  Maybe I should!