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A Run Through Windows Server 2008
amcdiarmid writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of Windows Server 2008 RC0 up on their site. It has a few good points, and at 19 pages is certainly 'in-depth'. From the article's conclusion: 'Microsoft has used the time since the release of Windows Server 2003 very well. The new Server Manager simplifies system administration immensely. Unlike Windows Vista, whose new dialogues still confuse even experienced users, Windows Server 2008 makes the admin feel right at home and in control ... However, it's not all sunshine, either. Although our test system used a beefy Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 with generous 2 GB of RAM, the Server's user interface felt sluggish with Windows being drawn very slowly ... Microsoft also gets low marks for failing to include SSH support in the operating system. On Linux servers, working without SSH is simply unthinkable. At least the Redmond company includes its encrypted remote shell WinRS. However, secure FTP is still a missing feature. The FTP client is being treated like an unloved stepchild, to the point where it is not even included in the Server Manager.'"
It needs all that memory for the new Windows Server Aero features!
Well, as long as it's not like Vista:XP in that it can arguably be called a downgrade, as I think the only "redeeming" point of Vista for most people (not me) is its eye-candy.
Without SSH and SFTP, does it seem as if Microsoft is trying to build a wall between itself and Linux? To what end I'm not sure, but this is starting to seem deliberate.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
> "and at 19 pages is certainly 'in-depth'."
19 pages - more pages to serve adverts. A few paragraphs on each page, and on "print" so you can't just read the whole thing in one page.
Come off it - take away the pictures, and the whole articles is a couple of paragraphs. In-depth? For people who never read anything harder than a comic book, maybe.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Windows Server 2008 takes up 10 GB of hard drive space.
10?! What the hell's taking up all the space?!
Perhaps there's a 1080p movie of Balmer chanting "Developers Developers Developers"
Summation 2
Although our test system used a beefy Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 with generous 2 GB of RAM, the Server's user interface felt sluggish with Windows being drawn very slowly
That's what happens when you try to use beefy hardware with a cheesy interface to a porky OS.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
"That would mean that a two-processor (=socket) license would allow the use of up to eight cores with current processors!"
How generous of Microsoft!
That's what I was looking for. running a single app via terminal services. Sadly, not tested.
It does however make me wonder if my graphics card was pushing the speed of the interface, how am I going to justify to my department head that I need the latest gaming card for my server? I have been trying that excuse for years to no avail :)
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Wow, I didn't realize Windows was THAT backwards(esp. considering how much they claim to be improving security). Name me ONE other modern operating system that doesn't have an ssh client out of the box? Mac has it, Linux has it, as far as I know most(all?) BSDs have it. You are asking people to pay hundreds of dollars for your product, but out of the box it is crippled. Why? It's not like authoring an ssh program is an incredibly difficult engineering project, the technology has been around for over a decade.....If they need to buy a provider, buy one, its not like they cannot afford it.
Yet another reason to avoid Microsoft products like the plague.
Monstar L
Now it is a problem if MS is not bundling software? Last time I checked, that was a good thing. At least it allows excellent third party products such as putty and pscp to thrive.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Lacking support for ftp, ssh etc are some vague attempt to create "value" to the non portable skill set developed by the windows admins. If the sys admins develop these skills and could easily run either linux or windows, then the switching cost for corporations to switch from windows to linux will decrease. Since the maximum revenue MSFT can extract from its existing installed base is capped by what it would cost its customers to switch to an alternative system, this is a very rational business strategy to keep them following a straight and narrow road to Redmond. And let us not blame just MSFT for this attitude. It is the customers who should realize the value of reducing their switching costs and demand better support for ftp, ssh and other linux side expertise they have in house. If customers don't demand it, why would a profit centered corporation deliver it?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Did you try clicking on any of the screenshots?
The link goes straight to PNGs.
http://images.tomshardware.com/2007/10/25/windows_server_2008_reviewed/08_initial_config.png
No reason to lie.
Fair enough -- I only looked at the first image. (I can't RTFA /and/ click links in it!)
"Microsoft has used the time since the release of Windows Server 2003 very well."
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008...tick tick tick tick
In contrast to all that dicking around BEFORE 2003?
I think one thing that needs to remembered is that 2008 will also contain "Server Core", which is essentially Windows without a GUI. I haven't played with 2008 since the early candidates, but I'd bet good money that a lot of the performance issues and disk space usage can be minimized when running in Server Core mode.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
So this is basically Vista Server Edition, right?
* Does it still have the worse-than-useless DRM to add to its complexity and slow it down?
* Will it still go into Reduced Functionality Mode if it suspects your license of being out of compliance?
* Does it still slash network performance if there is audio playing?
If so, everything that makes Vista unacceptable as a desktop makes this even more unacceptable as a server. If not, why won't everyone use this instead of Vista on their desktop?
You only need to hover your mouse over the image to read the URL it links to (and thus the file extension) :P
Is not like you are supporting Xorg or, god forbid, ext2 fs. It just ssh! I know it will take me a split second to install putty but, (chewbacca defense) COME ON!!!!!
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
"Microsoft also gets low marks for failing to include SSH support in the operating system. The FTP client is being treated like an unloved stepchild, to the point where it is not even included in the Server Manager."
No problem - check back, say 2013...?
I know that Redmond is paying bonuses for every article and press release shotgunned out during the release of Leopard, but this is one of the most blatant snow-jobs in recent history.
"WS2008 really sucks and all, but it doesn't totally TOTALLY suck, you know, because, like, it could have been worse...much worse...mostly. And we're the experts, so that's a good thing!"
Goddamn year-as-version-number bullshittery.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
You really think they are launching it next year ?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Check out the section on file transfers. It's considerably faster than Win2k3.
Printable view -- http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/25/windows_server_2008_reviewed/print.html No ads either :P
It's not as though there aren't SSH solutions for Windows Server... But as usual, Redmond is trying to hold all the unknowledgable system admins in their grasp by not allowing them to develop portable skill sets. I mean.. after all.. if they allowed them to develop portable skill sets, how would they keep them paying thousands of dollars for their overbloated, all-your-overpriced-hardware-are-belong-to-us OS?
Use what works.
the kernel running is executing a process scheduling algorithm to enhance background non interactive processes. so DUH your ui may feel slugish because its a low priority task.
That's what happens when you try to use beefy hardware with a cheesy interface to a porky OS.
It looks like Microsoft has already put Windows on the Atkins diet!
By 2010 Windows will either suffer a heart attack, or it will be nice and svelte!
Windows Server Philly Cheesesteak Edition?
I do have to admit that it would be silly of them to include SSH/SFTP by default, but this is what every other OS is able to do, at least for X apps -- ssh with X forwarding.
Not that there are that many GUI tools to make you want it -- and most of the GUI admin tools you'd care about are either a web interface or already provide their own client/server model, thus making it possible to admin them via the same native interface on your own Linux desktop.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I wonder if someone can check the backtraces of who made the windows server 2008 wikipedia entry because it is notoriously absent of the fact that it doesn't include anything for SSH .
> The FTP client is being treated like an unloved stepchild, to the point
> where it is not even included in the Server Manager.
Oh, so I guess people want MS to bundle up apps when it's convenient, but not when it serves their political interests to tear MS down loudly and publically.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled outrage sessions. [/sarcasm]
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"This new version of Windows will make things simpler and safer."
"Industry shows acceptance of 2k8 slow to start..."
"Now get Fred's Antivirus: now for 2K8!"
"This'll do us until Longhorn is released."
The code changes, yeah...but don't expect the problems to go away.
And it's interesting how each release requires VASTLY more power, just to sit still, isn't it? And because of that, dual-core P4's will be on the market and give me SO MUCH CPU in Linux I won't know what to do with it all.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
According to the article, server 2008 is built on Vista and includes product activation. o_0
Well that pretty much guarantees it's not coming on this network any time soon.
Most Servers don't have beefy video cards. A glitzzy UI has got perform more slowly here. But that is a small fix in the next generation of servers. Some machines should stick to the low end options.
It's a good review though.
The OS will also be used to "power" web servers (I use the word with some reservation). SSH would allow users to upload sites with a degree of control instead of cleartext FTP which also discloses passwords.
So maybe you don't use it as a sysadmin, but for external end users I think using SMB is a little bit too much of a risk, and https PUTs won't allow you to upload a whole site or scripts.
Insert
How does it compare to Mac OS X 10.5 server? At least a feature-wise comparison should be possible. Hope they follow up on the article.
Bert
They want to differentiate themselves from Unix, in that you should never need such things
This is complete Orwellian nonsense.
Windows Remote Desktop is crippleware. Beyond the second Windows remote login, it costs money to use remote desktop. How much are those remote desktop licenses?
In Linux I've got all the remote desktops I want on Linux with no license restrictions on those remote desktops either.
If your average windows admin actually audited their logs, they would discover the constant remote desktop dictionary attacks and no method by which to manage them within the remote desktop server.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Stop the insane moderation! You would be the worst kind of system administrator to deploy Server Core. Once you have one running, there's NO WAY OUT!
Known issues for deploying a Server Core installation
There is no way to upgrade from a previous version of the Windows Server operating system to a Server Core installation. Only a clean installation is supported.
There is no way to upgrade from a full installation of Windows Server "Longhorn" to a Server Core installation. Only a clean installation is supported.
There is no way to upgrade from a Server Core installation to a full installation of Windows Server "Longhorn". If you need the Windows® user interface or a server role that is not supported in a Server Core installation, you will need to install a full installation of Windows Server "Longhorn".
Please, post the EULA to server core. I'm sure there are plenty of other handcuffs in there too.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
That's what happens when you try to use beefy hardware with a cheesy interface to a porky OS.
Yeah, you end up looking like a porky cheezeburger glutton
It's not just shell access. It's tunnels. SSH clients and servers need to be hardened.
Face it, you don't want MS beta testing that on a server platform.
And no, I don't think putty is enough. I would like a active supported piece of software for this environment.
But is it faster than win2000? In my experience this version is the fastest for file transfers.
I know we love a good MS bash here, but c'mon - a Core 2 Duo E6700. With two gigs of ram.
And it has a sluggish interface.
There really is no honestly viable excuse.
Here's a mips count on the T5600. It's claiming 22305 Mips. (The T5600 is a good comparison point according to pricewatch, they're within maybe twenty bucks of each other - couldn't find a mips report on the E7600. Close enough for my point though. And yes, I know the Mips count from Dhrystone isn't exact either. But it's good enough for a ballpark discussion.)
Ok, so that's 22,305,000,000 instructions per second. Let's say we have a 1024x768 screen. That's 786432 pixels. Let's say we're refreshing 60 times per second. That's a total of 47185920 pixels to give a good user experience. And that's if you're drawing them with the cpu, manually. And let's say it takes two commands to move a pixel. Fetch from memory, and put to memory. That means you'll need 94371840 instructions to update the screen per second to do it. Please note that this is a worst case scenario - you're drawing everything by hand. Your graphics card isn't a GeForce 8800, it's a VGA card from the early 80's.
So looking at the instruction count, that's only 47185920/22305000000*100% = .42% of the total cpu's processing ability.
What the fuck could possibly be taking so much attention from the processor that it can't spare a measly half of a percent to refresh the damn screen?
Honestly, the cpu power we have these days is nothing short of staggering. We shouldn't have these kinds of problems at all, ever.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
But obviously, even though this is a Release Candidate (0!), it's clearly expected to be perfect and have all the features of the final version.
Well, hopefully it's sufficiently different from Vista or we'll all feel a bit run through after having to use it.
...becoause everyone is different and special in their own way!
.NET and make a sparkly, glassy 3-D GUI and elabourate DRM technology. Meanwhile, the REAL promising technology remain mired in the research department or stumble out barely half-baked.
Historically, Windows hasn't been command line oriented anyway, and remote access is done with Remote Desktop.
Well, historically the rest of the server OS universe HAS bee command-line-oriented and script-heavy, and remote access has been through RSH, Telnet and then SSH when encryption and strong authentication were needed. Nonetheless, int the Linux/BSD/UN*X world there has been a good amount of effort to accommodate the "Windows way". We have VNC, tunneling xwindows over SSH, and yes, there are even clients for Citric and Remote Desktop freely available (and sometimes included as part of an OS distribution).
Things aren't really character stream oriented in Windows, and for security you are supposed to use IPSec.
But Microsoft? Nooooo. Microsoft cannot tolerate differences. It insists we all play the game by their rules and if we don't, they take their marbles and go home. MS doesn't want mixed platform to be easy--they want it to be possible but annoying. The hope is that they can leverage their total desktop dominance to infiltrate the pointy-haired-boss-managed server market enough to hit critical mass, where managers get annoyed at having to maintain two different sets of administration tools, procedures, training resources, etc.
There is no technical reason whatsoever for Microsoft choosing one approach whilst barely acknowledging established practices. It happens quite often where someone bellyaches about "I can't do x in Windows without the GUI" or some such thing and quickly gets a reply from a seasoned Windows admin to just open up a command prompt and type some-such arcane command which is undocumented, or buried deep within the bowels of the MSDN knowledgebase beast. Obviously Windows IS capable, but MS consciously chooses to neglect such practices. SSH is part of the same problem--they could AT LEAST put in a proper SSH-supporting client fer cryin' out loud! A server would be nice too--not everyone wants to dedicate the bandwith for remote desktop connections. There are servers or other machines that require remote admin out in very remote locations sometimes, accessible only by low-speed cellular modems or packet radio. Remote GUIs at 9600 baud tend to be quite impractical compared to ssh, sftp and such. GUIs make a very poor interface for large-scale admin of, say large server farms and clusters.
Microsoft's model might be a "better UNIX than UNIX" within some narrow scope, but Microsoft continues to suffer from severe tunnel vision. It takes them a long time to bring things into focus that aren't right in front of them. Microsoft could've put a more concerted effort into WinFS and Monad and componentised Windows and interoperability tools but it didn't. It had instead to make 3 major releases of
I'd send MS to the corner for its lousy behaviour.
This link explains at a very high level why there is no SFTP out of the box, but it is a downloadable option.
reminds me of the ol ITRON from Japan. a paragraph or two from a Linux News article (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/31855.html): "mpact Deferred The TRON Project is not new; in fact, it was poised to its mark more than a decade ago, in Japan's PC industry, but the U.S. government intervened. In 1989, Japanese electronics giant Matsushita introduced a BTRON PC, a machine that stunned the industry with its advanced capabilities. The BTRON PC had an 80286 Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) The HP ProLiant DL380 G5 Server with Systems Insight Manager (SIM). Latest News about Intel chip running at 8 MHz and a mere 2 MB of memory, but it could display moving video in color in a separate window. Also, it had a dual-booting system that could run both the BTRON OS and MS-DOS. When the Japanese government announced it would install BTRON PC in Japanese schools, the U.S. government objected. It called the Japanese initiative "actual and potential market intervention" and threatened the move with sanctions. The Japanese, dependent on the U.S. export market, quickly dropped the plan. The U.S. government later withdrew its threat, but the damage had already been done. Nearly all Japanese companies involved in TRON-related activities had canceled their projects." This is a little different situation, so what will Microsoft do now in order to seize the issue?
Microsoft finally offered a method to avoid some of the bloat with Core Install. To bad they did a half ass job with it and didn't come up with a way to switch back and forth between the full and core installions without having to reinstall the system.
I would like to add init levels to the Windows wish list, right behind SSH/SFTP.
2008 supports FTPS not SFTP. FTPS is FTP over SSL, SFTP is SSH which is not secure as deployed if the bad guys have access to the initial handshake.
.. no optional server services running..such as IIS..etc.
...makes it very ackward and unusable IMHO.
:(
I installed 2008 RC0 on a vmware session and had no performance problems with the default UI.. The reviewer plays dumb hinting at driver problems? I can only assume they are using unaccelerated basic vga drivers and he knew damn well that was the case.
It ate rediculous amounts of memory from the start with no applications running. (282MB just to get to the desktop)
The command windows are a little bit messed up. The system now auto-saves the window configuration state and there are no options as with all previous versions of windows weather you want to save the state or make a one time change.
Also the DDE behavior WRT command windows has changed.
I don't like the vista network configuration layout..network and sharing center. Given the audience its too optimized for the unsavvy joe which can be confusing for admins on a mission. Assumption of "Internet" is also pretty lame for a server operating system. I can't stand the sharing and discovery dialouges... Its rediculous with the arrows
Additionally when running in classic mode the control panel has a sidebar on the left that just takes up space and shows nothing. It looks soo out of place that I thought it was a window rendering problem initially.
The disk defragmenter graphical UI is gone?! Why is the rum gone?
I think the OS itself eats up somewhere on the order of 6 GB, not 10... Its likely 10 or more when swap and hibernate file are included.
Also MS needs to grow a clue about turning off font anti-aliasing by default. Noobody likes it, it just makes all text look blurry and stupid.
In review I can't think of one useful thing added in this OS above and beyond what was avaliable in 2003 I care about with the exception of SMB2 assuming it provides better WAN performance. 2003 is an awesome OS.
The problems I see with 2008 are more memory usage for no real gain
and UI suffers from the vista effect. The memory usage doesn't matter much assuming most will be swapped to disk but the non vista UI stinks
Actually, as a Win2k3 admin, I can honestly say that there's nothing truly bad about the OS itself. It has held very solid for me. I say that in part because I don't have to use it for anything more than managing Active Directory.
I would be willing to look into purchasing a new version of the Exchange server if they could redesign it in such a way that it has a clean, easily backed-up pool. As it is right now, I really don't know whether or not my backups of the Exchange server would really be accepted in a system restore. And that scares me.
/* No Comment */
RC0?
What the hell does that even mean?
1. I'm not talking about some XP boxes. I've got a dozen production servers that upgraded from 2000->2003 beautifully. There isn't an XP box in the world I would upgrade, but on the server side it works.
2. If you think like an XP desktop administrator when it comes to servers, then you must lose quite a bit of sleep in production changes. Good luck with that.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Bluetooth, dock/undock, hibernate, gaming, it all works. And IE is completely declawed so you don't even if you accidentally open an untrusted URL in it, you're not going to get adware toolbars installed and your NDIS stack rejiggered.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
As you probably know, the "Server Core" edition comes without any GUI. This reduces the total amount of bits that needs to be patched later and this in turn needs to less reboot/hassle/downtime. The problem is that .NET depends on the GUI so .NET cannot run on Server Core. This in turns means that you cannot install MSSQL because it contains managed code (not only in stored procedures but in core product). It also means that while you could theoretically install IIS, why would you ever do that? You will not be able to run any dynamics content stuff (ASP.NET etc) on it. I've also heard (from an MS sales person!) that Exchange contains managed code. This means that to benefit from the lower footprint in Server Core, you better run only OSS software (because as you know, no open source server has hard dependencies on managed code). MySQL and what not will run just fine on Server Core. Then again, with no ssh the administration will be a pain in the ass; why not just use Linux instead? GUI is optional without massive loss of functionality.
Actually it seems to go straight to a 500 Internal server error.
As I spent the last week trying to untangle the mess of manifests, I realized one thing. Vista is NOT all crap.
:).
UI popup asking you to verify that you clicked something is not that great. But if you get a virus, you may stop and wander why you get popoup boxes all the time even if you didn't click it. Annoying but maybe effective? Don't know. This is the part of Vista I do not like at all.
manifest files - ughh! Well, if you understand them, they are not that bad. Still annoying to the developers but better than DLL Hell of yesteryears. If you want a different confusion for developers, look at OS X frameworks. Not exactly standard dynamic libraries there either.
The new folder locations are great. Vista is getting closer to what Linux/Unix had for years. Actually, they are easier to understand than Mac OS X stuff.
The real pain are the 64-bit/32-bit file/registry reflections. That is just stupid. Same application = Same key! The lack of manifest = registry reflection is also crap. Open a registry, and it opens a different one for you! Stupid!!
But the changes in Vista are not all bad. There are some good ones. (BTW, manifests and SxS execution was in place since XP or 2000, just no one used it until Vista is forcing it down our throats
Of course, I still find Gnome+Linux the most productive environment over Vista or XP or OS X. It just works.
PS. 2003 is not faster than XP. It will only be faster if you install crap on your XP box. What 2003 has is more throughput = less overhead. But that also means less interactivity. And people will not "transition" from XP -> 2008. If they do, then they have too much money in their pockets.
How hard would it be to have the following items added to Windows 2008:
1). SSH Server (so I can remote into my machine over a slow connection or my blackberry)
2). A decent shell (powershell has a lot of potention, if they added powershell support for all management feature s in Windows and AD like they did for Exchange 2007, that would be awesome).
I love parts of Linux and I love parts of Windows and I just wonder why there is nothing that puts the good from both together.
Respect the Constitution
Yes, there are extremely good reasons for having the source available, but it being a substitute for good end-user documentation is not one of them. (Code should be well-documented and clearly written, but for the benefit of maintainers, not end users!).
In an absolutely desparate situation if you're prepared to put the time in, reading the source *might* save your bacon, but I'd already be severely pissed off if I had to resort to that. Particularly if the code was opaquely or just downright messily written.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
There's a post-RC0 update that you can get from http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&i=1526&g=6
which updates the FTP service so that it supports FTP over SSL.
There's no secure shell available because windows has no shell.
;-)
;-)
No, Power Shell does not count
Windows is not made according to the unix "onion" model.
Check it out with Cygwin developers.
Oh, for ssh I can recommend Cygwin
This is assuming the delays are cpu bound. If they're IO bound it wouldn't matter how fast your CPU is.
Mod me down, whatever... I can't believe how many well worded and legitimate complaints about the lack of SSH support got modded troll. We're talking about lack of both an SSH client and server. These are basic tools for an admin using most servers. I'm really surprised that even on /. a person saying "Come on, no SSH?" would get modded troll. That's a legitimate complaint. SSH is essential to my operation. If I bought ANY server OS that didn't support it out of the box I would seriously question its credibility.
MS wants you to use RDP for remote management. To do that, each server has to have the full GUI installed and running at all times.
In the Unix world, the server doesn't need to run X. So you can have a zoo of head-less servers and administer them from a desktop with all the GUI tools, since the desktop has the X server and you can use X forwarding over SSH to control the headless machine from anywhere in the world.
So, on Win2008, if you don't install the GUI, then you can *never* use any GUI tools, which is a distinct disadvantage compared to Unix systems.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!