Why god why

So this guy had a craptastic workgroup network at his office, and we were tasked with converting it to a domain, usually not an issue.

The whole project was done WRONG outside of my control

I’m not gonna clutter up the front page, this one is a biggun’, read the whole thing. So anyway it started out bad, the previous “tech” (if they qualify to peel an orange I’ll never know how) set up a Win2K WORKSTATION as a server.
It wasn’t very effective.
So my boss takes over the system.
I’m told to back up everything on Thur. and install the server Fri. Not how I’d do it, but it’s workable. I make all the backups to bring to the office and BEFORE I LEAVE I tell the owner (Not quoted, if I quoted you’d read the same line 4 times): I’ve made a backup of your server, ANY changes to documents made on the server between now and when I finish installing the server WILL NOT BE CARRIED OVER. He says ok he’ll write everything down. Perfect.
Friday arrives and I begin the server install, every 30 FUCKING minutes he wants to do something involving the network. DUDE, I’m changing the INFRASTRUCTURE of your network, not upgrading solitare, I can’t stop every 30 minutes so you can check your mail. Finally got everything working, but didn’t have time to test everything (mostly his fault, he wanted to get out ASAP, I wanted to test everything, and the customer, no matter how stupid, is always right).
Fast forward to Monday, I get a call before I come in, he called my boss and was crying about missing data. I stop there before getting in and he tells me he did some work on Friday and now it’s not there. “Right”. Why I said that I have no clue, because over the weekend part of his brain oozed out and he forgot what I told him on Thur. So now he’s having a minor fit over his “lost” data (which isn’t really lost, just on the old server). I’m not familiar with the software enough to fix it, but my boss is, so hopefully he can fix this thing and I can never walk into his office again.

What would I have done? Scheduled a day for server replacement, shut everything down in the morning but the server, back it up, install new server, restore data and settings, join all computers, restore desktops, and test it out. ALL in 1 day. Why all that in only 1 day? Simple, instead of 15 little “farts” I’d rather have 1 huge “fart” without then losing a day, or even a few minutes, of work.  Oh, and don’t bother us unless we need you, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re in the FUCKING way.