Windows Server 2008 One Year On — Hit Or Miss?

magacious writes "Friday marked a year to the day since Microsoft launched Windows Server 2008, but did it have quite the impact the so-called software giant expected, or did it make more of a little squeak than a big bang? Before its arrival on 27 February 2008, it had been five long years since the release of the last major version of Windows Server. In a world that was moving on from simple client/server applications, and with server clouds on the horizon, Windows Server 2003 was looking long in the tooth. After a year of 'Vista' bashing, Microsoft needed its server project to be well received, just to relieve some pressure. After all, this time last year, the panacea of a well-received Windows 7 was still a long way off. So came the new approach: Windows Server 2008."

Comments

I expected more driver support

[VampireByte]

I've installed Win2008 a few times and it always surprises me that I have to dig up the driver disks for the storage controllers... never have to do that when I install Fedora or Debian.

Re:I expected more driver support

[mysidia]

This is really an about face... 10 years ago, Linux was the platform you often couldn't get running due to missing hardware drivers -- you really had to be very careful about what hardware you chose.

Also, Windows 2000 was the easy-to-use OS.. Linux was the server OS with usability issues..

Is it starting to change, so that Linux is actually more usable than Windows server?

That would be the day...

Now if only we could get a true match for Windows Active Directory. So that the software on Windows Desktop machines, works EXACTLY as if the environment was powered by Windows servers, Exchange for e-mail, etc.

No news is good news

[LibertineR]

Bottom line: It just works. Nice new GPO features, Hyper V is fine, but overall, nothing to get terribly excited about other than the fact that there have been few negative issues.

Outside of removing ISA Server from the Small Business suite, I've read very few negative opinions on 2K8. If you dont need 64-Bit goodness, it might not be worth upgrading from a stable 2K3 environment.

Re:Can't answer your question

[zappepcs]

To add a voice: I'm seeing more Linux installs than Win2k8 and Vista combined. This many mean nothing, or may mean I'm seeing what the average person is seeing. Consolidation and cost are driving what I'm seeing. When you see a row of several hundred blades running RHEL (replacing Windows in some cases) it's fairly convincing.

Re:Can't answer your question

[zappepcs]

The data center where my servers are is a mixed client data center. It's not the decision of a single company there. There is one company who is using Windows server 2k3 but they are not upgrading. Some of their stuff is moving to Linux/Solaris. The RHEL stuff is a different company that replaced all their Windows servers and went full on RHEL. In my area, we use a mix of Win2k3, Solaris (5.8-10), and Linux (CentOS). There is a ton of telecomms stuff in half the data center as well. I'm not seeing any growth in Windows servers, quite the opposite. That's why I thought my experience might be 'average' so to speak.

Re:Can't answer your question

[FishWithAHammer]

Your experience would be average--for low-end stuff. Generally, if you have the money to be leveraging a lot of Windows Server, you have the money (and often need) your own DC, or a sizable chunk of one.

Anybody whose cup of tea is ASP.NET should be running, not walking, to Server 2008. IIS7 is so much more useful and performant it's not even funny.

Works well as workstation

[regular_gonzalez]

I'm actually really impressed with it as a workstation OS. It is as fast as XP due to the significantly fewer number of background services running as compared to Vista, with the prettiness and features of Vista (including Direct X 10 for gaming). Vista drivers work just fine. I installed it mostly as a joke after having received it at one of those Heroes Happen Here conferences, but now I don't even boot to my XP partition anymore.

Re:whats it give us?

[rabbit994]

Actually no, I'm a busy admin and I don't have time to follow these instructions for getting Samba hooked up to Active Directory: http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba_&_Active_Directory

Then I have to install ACL support and headache that goes with that, hoping something doesn't scramble my file system. In most businesses, Windows Server is not terribly expensive and allows the admin to get more done in less time.

Note, there are distros that offer GUIs for getting this done but they generally cost $$$. Why spend $$$ and introduce multi OS environment into what used to be single OS environment resulting in additional headaches.

ACTIVATION??

[plazman30]

The fact that I have to activate my OS is annoying. With 2K3, there was a volume licensing option, but with 2K8, that option is gone, and I have to either allow my server to talk to a public Microsoft activation server, or run a KMS server in house.

Sorry, Microsoft, If you don't trust me, I don't trust you.

Re:whats it give us?

[Eun-HjZjiNeD]

I have been using ws2k8-e for about 6 months now for my workstation/desktop. It's faster than regular vista and has the features I like about vista while not being full of bloat. I also have ws2k8-e core on my media server.