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Making the Switch To Windows "Workstation" 2008
snydeq writes "Disenchanted with Vista? Why not convert Windows Server 2008 into the lean, efficient, reliable 'power user' OS that Windows should be? InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy, who has been using a converted 'Workstation' 2008 as his primary OS since hitting a wall using Vista as a Visual Studio development platform four months ago, says the guerrilla OS has turned his Dell notebook into a well-oiled machine that never gets sluggish and rarely needs to reboot. Those interested in making the switch should check out win2008workstation.com, a clearinghouse for 'Workstation' 2008 tips and techniques. Kennedy also offers a link to a Windows 2008 Workstation Converter utility for those looking to quickly convert a fresh Server 2008 install without hacking the registry or manually installing/enabling lots of services and features."
sounds nice, but what I usually do is just regedit my shell from explorer.exe to cmd. Saves time and resources. Turn off the unecessary services, and you've got a stable little (figuratively) os.
XP 64 is better than win2k in many ways. (not to be confused with standard XP). it's more like server 2003.
I wouldn't mind going the Win2008 route (even though I'm a Unix&Linux die hard). But the price for Win2008 doesn't really make it a viable option as a Vista substitute:
Windows Server 2008 Standard $999
Windows Web Server 2008 $469
the webserver edition doesn't have any client access licenses, but I think you don't need any if you want to turn it into a workstation OS. Could be the cheapest route, but not certain if that would work.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
All I ever wanted was a stable (Windows) OS, without the eyecandy crap. So I ran Windows 2000 for a long time. Then I decided to try Windows Server 2003, and ran it for a few years. All the drivers from 2000/XP worked fine, and after some tweaking, everything was great.
So why don't I run it anymore? First, I got the software free through my school, and there was a legal agreement attached to it that I don't want to have to worry about now. Second, I'm not shelling out a kilobuck for a server OS so I can use it on a desktop. Third, there is a lack of decent firewall software for 2003, particularly free firewalls. Fourth, I don't want to deal with activation. (Also, the EULA apparently prohibits non-server use, but who cares about that.)
2008 has some nice features, but I'm not interested in adopting a Vista platform. I'm currently on XP, but only because of applocale, really.
I'm currently developing Windows apps without actually having to "use" windows to get my work done. Yup the beauty of cross compiling with MinGW and testing on the Windows XP machine I have hidden in the corner.
I think I've actually gotten better at writing code, because I have to read/check more and make sure that I think it works before testing.
Having run a bit of vista and Ubuntu on the same machine, I have to say 2008 runs a lot better than the one and not as well as the other ;)
db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
So Server 2008 is better than Vista. What isn't?
The real question is what does it offer over Server 2003 x64 (or XP Pro 32) that offsets the less mature (sometimes non-existent) drivers and compatibility problems.
There are a bunch of different homebrew "versions" of XP and Vista around, most notably LastXP and LastVista. AppzPoint.net (unfortunately that site is broken now) used to host a whole bunch of them including one called TinyXP that was supposed to be completely bare bones (never tried it). You can find torrents to this stuff on the 'Bay and other sites, and while they come with a pirate key, you're free to change the key to a legit one. I've used LastXP for a couple of years now and I completely love it. It's very stable and comes with drivers for every device I've had. I'm sure some other /. users can recommend some other modded versions of XP, too.
There's the occasional program that uses IE (technically: the MSHTML component) to render HTML, and you can still face this problem. For instance, if you don't install the MSDN docs locally, help in Visual Studio goes out to MSDN's site, and the security settings in IE apply to this connection. I've hit it a couple other places too, but more esoteric.
After checking, I see that you are right. I was under the impression that PMP was not part of WS2K8. However, I never said I hated Vista. Quite the contrary, actually; Vista is a step up from XP in my (not very popular) opinion. But of course I prefer 2K8 over Vista, since it's noticeably faster (even with indexing, the Desktop Experience package, Aero, etc. enabled) and doesn't treat you like quite as much of an idiot. It also includes some nice power-user features that Vista doesn't, like Hyper-V and the System Resource Manager.
All that, just to be able to do exactly what you could do with XP on a 32-bit machine with 512MB RAM three years ago?
Now that's absurd...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 are exactly the same operating system.
The article author and the guys at win2008workstation.com obviously have no idea what they're talking about.
Turning Windows Vista into Server 2008 is just a matter of turning off a few bells and whistles.
These people will argue until they're blue in the face that Server 2008 is amazing, while Vista is terrible....
Err...Windows 2008 is entirely capable as a home OS. Just because it has "Server" in the name doesn't mean that it isn't. Windows 2000 was a "server" OS for a long time. Windows 2003 was too. (And 2003 was way nicer as a desktop than XP ever was, if not for its embarrassing failures with DirectX.)
My other machine is running 2008 now, with a local work-copy of IIS 7 running. Occasionally I use it for playing old emulated games (because that way I don't have to mess with plugging in controllers to my main machine), and my brother uses it for surfing the web.
Saying that your "only alternatives" to Vista are Ubuntu and XP is completely idiotic. 2008 is Vista without the suck, and it takes about half an hour to twiddle the settings for desktop use.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
While it is true that Windows Server 2008 is almost exactly the same as Vista SP1, down to the hotfixes and drivers, the tangible difference is really a bunch of compiler macros and flags that Microsoft charges hundreds of dollars for.
I run Server 2008 with the "Desktop Experience" pack as a substitute for Vista on my work laptop because of a bad experience I once had while doing a demo for a customer on an XP laptop - I had developed a simple ASP.NET website and was making a demonstration when one of the users had managed to produce a "HTTP/500" error. It was incredibly embarrassing to have my supposedly "highly reliable" system lock up after just a few clicks. It took me days to figure out that the "crash" was caused by a completely artificial limitation introduced by Microsoft into XP to differentiate it from their Server line - one of the TCP/IP connection limits was the culprit. I had never noticed it while developing, because loopback connections are not affected.
So now I run an MSDN licensed Windows 2008 as a "workstation" OS so that I can avoid the Microsoft Marketing Department's deliberately introduced bugs, leaving only the plain old technical bugs, of which there are thankfully fewer than some previous MS operating system releases.
> Personally, I have been forced into using Leopard (Mac OSX) at work for the past two months
> and I have been very pleased. UNIX is just great.
I switched to using a mac as my main box a few years ago, back in the days of Panther (10.3) Was using it until a couple of weeks ago when the hardware on the ibook started failing badly. Now I'm on Leopard, and a shiny new Leopard-based macbook, and apart from some OpenGL glitches that prevents Unity3d using shaders I'm more than happy with it.
> The only problem with Mac OSX is the GUI but I can run X and do most of what I want.
> I mean, I like the Mac GUI, but some of the stuff is frustrating to a power user.
What's wrong with the UI exactly? You have to spend at least 3 months to unlearn all your windowisms (yes that includes many linux window managers)
I'm a serious poweruser, and there's nothing that I can't do on OSX I can't do on linux/windows (other than visual studio, which is the only reason I have a windows VM) I suppose I could make do with monodevelop, but I'd rather not.
What can't you do?
I've bought a couple of tools ... transmit being the most significant (still I could get around that by using fuse...) Apple apps tend to be more polished than their windows counterparts, and I don't feel any resentment from paying for the apps either.
I really don't think anyone assumes that people actually pay for a windows OS with this article. It just doesn't seem plausible.
since I lack mod points I have to agree with you. The dejon mustard sauce was great.
I actually got in trouble at MCD while working there for making an arch but using the grilled chicken instead of meat. now that was a tasty sandwich.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
and put a rogue DHCP server on some poor bastard's network.
-ted
I understand why some people might stick to XP or Vista for their desktop OS (games, really) instead of something like Ubuntu. I am totally baffled by these people who are so insistent on using the Windows hammer that they'd waste time and effort on forcing a server OS to (badly) resemble a desktop OS.
Even the title (... "workstation" ...) alludes to the fact that the end result isn't really suitable for home users. OK, so it's Windows for Power Users? What's the point? I'm really not trying to be inflammatory... I'm just perplexed. What does a windows Power User do/need that a normal user doesn't?
I'm honestly trying to understand why anyone would go through all the time and trouble to lobotomize Windows Server just to avoid using Vista, other than refusing to learn/use Linux. If you're savvy enough to jump through all of those hoops, why not use a real Power User OS? It's not even much of a learning curve anymore.
Meh. Get off my lawn, etc.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
I work with Win Serv 2003 on a daily basis as well as XP on my work machine. Let me tell you Server 2003 is much better than XP. This fact has probably been true since NT was first created. Why do you think MS switched from using the DOS (win 95, win 98, and ME) to NT kernel? They figured out that what is being used for the server side is best. They probably put several times more testing time into their server software. Nothing on the server software should even remotely close to a beta version. It will be tried and true. On the other hand we have the commercial side users. They know the normal user is a good test bed for flaws in the system. They take this research and place it in the Server architecture. Also, they know normal users are attracted to shiny things and love advertisements. Some power users (linux geeks) will take the commercial software and make it a model hate Microsoft. This is alright and it is a show of how open source is different from closed source. Open source is much quicker to evolve due to the direct communication with average user. Closed source relies on limited but still effective communication. They are both the same but open is faster to change than closed. But because of the lack of active advertising and 'shiny stuff' linux may never build a large average user group. In conclusion, yes Microsoft is going to use only the best code for their Server software and perhaps the untested software is for us mice.
Not even close. Edsels were a commercial failure, but they were perfectly capable cars, on par with most American made cars of the time. Vista, to use a car analogy, is a Cadillac chassis with a Yugo engine.
More than 60,000 Windows programs won't run on Linux.