Offloading features of SBS 2008 Standard to member servers?

Question

What I'd like to do is run SBS 2008 Standard on a machine with several features either disabled or simply not used. Basically I'd just like the box to be a domain controller and Exchange server, nothing else.

Then I'd like to use a Windows Server 2008 standard system as an "administrative machine", which would run things like WSUS, our anti-virus system, monitoring, etc.

Finally, I'd like to have a dedicated machine for WSS (low traffic) and file serving.

My question is: is it possible to disable or remove features like WSUS from SBS without it throwing a big cow? The only reason I want SBS is to save on Exchange costs. SBS Premium is interesting, but I don't need SQL Server and it's price is quite high. Windows Essentials is also interesting, but is also not terribly affordable. I can get SBS Standard + CALs for a reasonable price, and I can add several 2008 Servers before I get close to the SBS Premium / Essentials cost.

My goal is to reduce the maintenance disaster that always results when using SBS to "do everything".

Answer 1

You can remove WSUS from SBS through the progams and features option in control panel. Doing so has not had an detrimental effects when I have done it, and WSUS has worked fine running on another machine.

I would expect WSS should be similar, however I've not done that before.