Review:Win Server 2008

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Hi friends..
Windows Server 2008 review
I had been using Microsoft’s most stable operating system XP till last Sunday. The most user friendly OS was running easily on my new rig(Core2Duo E4500,2GB RAM, Intel DG33 motherboard,200GB HDD) without any hassle. To be more frank I liked XP more than any other OS including Vista, Ubuntu for various reasons. But, last Saturday I got this “hard worker” from one of my cousins. This is one year evaluation copy, so I thought installing it instead of pirated XP which I was using.
Before installing, I thought of knowing minimum hardware requirement for this version of windows. Though I was sure that my system will handle this OS easily, I was pretty curious to know the minimum specification. I goggled for it and got these information from Wikipedia page:

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Recommended[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Processor[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]1 GHz ([/FONT][FONT=&quot]x86[/FONT][FONT=&quot]) or 1.4 GHz (x64)[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Memory[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]512 [/FONT][FONT=&quot]MB[/FONT][FONT=&quot]RAM[/FONT][FONT=&quot] (may limit performance and some features)[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]2 GB RAM or higher [/FONT]​

• [FONT=&quot]Maximum (32-bit systems): 4GB RAM (Standard) or 64GB RAM (Enterprise and Datacenter) [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Maximum (64-bit systems): 32GB RAM (Standard) or 2TB RAM (Enterprise, Datacenter and Itanium-Based Systems[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Video adapter and monitor[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Super VGA[/FONT][FONT=&quot] (800 x 600)[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Hard drive disk free space[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]10 [/FONT][FONT=&quot]GB[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]40 GB or higher [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Note: Computers with more than 16GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Drives[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]DVD-ROM[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]DVD-ROM or better[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Devices[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]keyboard[/FONT][FONT=&quot] and [/FONT][FONT=&quot]mouse[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor, keyboard and mouse[/FONT]​

My version of the Server was Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, so I went to Google page once again to know all the versions out there. According to Google there are Nine versions available of this OS. They are here.
I decided to install it on my 14GB primary drive. Installing Server was pretty easy like any other Windows products.. Installer page was pretty similar to that of Vista, but this one took less time than Vista(just twentyfour minutes). Here is the image of (I really don’t know how take image of setup screen)installer page.
*img175.imageshack.us/img175/5673/setupgc3.th.jpg


On this rig Vista Ultimate took around 28minutes to get installed, while this one took just 24 minutes as I said earlier. I was struck in login page were it asks for the password(must need a password).I couldn’t give password for the first time as I was getting an error like this “Unable to update the password. The value provided for the new password does not meet the length, complexity, or history requirements of the domain”. I googled for the problem and got the solution. If you are installing you must consider these parameter while giving the password.

• ·Passwords cannot contain the user’s account name or parts of the user’s full name that exceed two consecutive characters.
• ·Passwords must be at least six characters in length.
• ·Passwords must contain characters from three of the following four categories:
• ·English uppercase characters (A through Z).
• ·English lowercase characters (a through z).
• ·Base 10 digits (0 through 9).
• ·Non-alphabetic characters (for example, !, $, #, %).

It took 22 seconds to boot for the first time and the login screen is simple.



The next one is desktop. Like Welcome screen in Vista it does open a page called Initial Configuration Tool. It has lot of options to configure the server and here is the page. There is no welcome screen in this OS. So I couldn’t check the rating for my rig.Here is screen shot of Initial configuration Tool page
*img73.imageshack.us/img73/3874/firstpagecg7.th.jpg

Theme and start menu is much like Vista classic . This version of the windows is not bundled with any other eye candy theme(probably because it’s server). I did a check in Resources folder.To my bad luck Aero folder was empty.Moreover this doesn’t come a wallpaper too.
*img169.imageshack.us/img169/2525/startmenuandexplorerib0.th.jpg


The next step was to play songs as I don’t know much about server version..Unfortunately there is no media player in this version of the OS. It might be not there in 2003 version, but I don’t know...MS has bundled IE7 browser without any add-ons.. The shut down menu is different here. Here is the screen shot

*img137.imageshack.us/img137/2762/shutdownmenueu5.th.jpg

Anyone can say this OS is super fast when compare to Vista. Response time is also good. I am planning to tweak it so that I can boot it in just 10 seconds. This night am going kick off my lovely XP Pro from my system. I have yet to install all the softwares and drivers …So, I will finish my small review here.
Thanks for reading…
Source

 

[debsuvra]

I think u do not know that almost every element of Windows Vista including the AERO and WMP11 is present in the Windows Server 2008. This OS can be used as a Workstation OS instead of a server one if rightly tweaked. Some system services must be enabled to get those extra things like Vista in Server 2008.

I am using Windows Server 2008 with Windows Vista Ultimate for the last 3 months and Server edition does not disappoint. But the real problem is that it has some driver incompatibility and a huge list of program incompatibility. Even some popular Anti Virus, Firewalls, Instant Messengers etc will not work with this. For example, Windows Live Messenger does not work there, it does not even install.

Check these sites for detailed instruction :

*www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/
*blogs.msdn.com/vijaysk/archive/2008/02/11/using-windows-server-2008-as-a-super-desktop-os.aspx

 

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^Thanks..But,why WMP11 was not installed during the installation? One more thing is I have even checked the C:\Windows\resources\themes..There is a folder called Aero,but it's empty.Can tell me what could be the problem?
Thanks for the link..