Windows "Workstation" 2008

[Bludd]

Anyone read this?

Windows "Workstation" 2008: One week later
"Workstation" 2008 - four months later
Using Windows Server 2008 as a SUPER workstation OS
Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation!

I am intrigued. I can get this from school for free (MSDNAA or whatever it is called) and I am contemplating it.

The win2008workstation.com site has a list with games that work/don't work with this OS, however most do and a few only require small workarounds while a tiny minority just plain don't work or won't install.

Have any of you done this? Experiences? Dos and don'ts?

Please share.

 

[Skrying]

Am I missing something? If you're going to convert it into Vista.... why not just use Vista?

 

[Blazkowicz]

it IS vista anyway. The server/workstation distinction has always been about licensing, not technical differences.
a machine can be both desktop and server, the one I'm typing this on does dhcp/tftp, squid, samba, nfs. Your gaming rig might be sharing files or doing other server duties right now

You'd get better, lighter defaults and the ability to run terminal services, plus features that you won't use on your desktop. I only had experience with server 2003, not 2008, but it should be similar : you get a light and secure desktop by default and enable features as needed/wanted. nliting/vliting could allow that.

about Server 2003, it's a "Windows XP second edition", better tested, with an improved kernel and an internet explorer not allowed by default to run or download anything (best feature ever!). so it's slightly different from regular XP. I had it running for a while and it was great. but XP64 IS windows 2003.

in the end while I miss 2003 a bit, I was able to get back to XP keeping most of the benefits, as you can trim the system, have the file explorer simple and efficient etc. through configuration (I don't even use nlite). I had sticked to win 98 on my main rig actually! XP is good but I hated it for so long. so I went like this : 98SE > 2003 > XP SP2. likewise you can toy and do XP > server 2008 > Vista. or stick with Server 2008 anyway if you have a free Server 2008 but you don't have Vista.

 

[Bludd]

I have free Vista too, but I want to try this too. Since they are free, I can have them all. I just wanted to find out if the benefits the guys are talking about in those links are real.

 

[suryad]

I wish I had 'free' but I think windows 2008 still would be slower than XP x64. I may be biased....

 

[Albuquerque]

Those first two articles seem like a lot of fluff to me, but I've not tested his claims.

However, he doesn't seem to have "tested" a lot of his claims either. He mentions that Vista Sp1 was sluggish because of DRM? And he measured this how? And that he needed to rebuild his Vista boxes once every few months due to registry bloat? Huh? And then Vista became "sluggish" after not having rebooted over a few days? My primary Vista Ultimate 64 gaming rig has suspended itself for the last month until I finally popped in the new pair of 4850's last night, and "sluggish" was nowhere to be found. My office rig has gone for several weeks without reboot until patches come down...

I'm not saying that there aren't benefits; I can imagine several scenarios where the server OS will perform better simply because it's tuned in a different way. But I'm not buying his story wholesale for a variety of (what I think are) obvious reasons...

 

[Zengar]

Am I missing something? If you're going to convert it into Vista.... why not just use Vista?

Well, I am not so sure... I did try 2008 some time ago; and after anabling all the user experiance services (basically converting it to Vista), it still run noticeably faster and consumed less memory then Vista. So there will be differences. Unfortunately, I don't have the benchmark results anymore.