MS Windows Server 2008

markymoo · Feb 17, 2008

Been trying out the trial of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 just released and i am impressed. Installation was a doddle and it flys alot faster than Vista. Very easy to use. Has the look of Vista but without the extra boomph but you can install the Desktop Experience so its like Vista. It has a new virtualization technology called Hyper-5 which is similar to Virtual PC but all built in already. Changed it into a Workstation. Heres an useful guide to do this. Same rules applies for 2008. http://win2k3.msfn.org/ Out of price range for home user but worth sampling.

trial here
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/trial-software.aspx

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/25/windows_server_2008_reviewed/

Top features
#1: Server Core. Here is where the world could really change for Microsoft going forward: Imagine a cluster of low-overhead, virtualized, GUI-free server OSes running core roles like DHCP and DNS in protected environments, all to themselves, managed by way of a single terminal.

#2: PowerShell. At last. For two years, we've been told it'll be part of Longhorn, then not really part of Longhorn, then a separate free download that'll support Longhorn, then the underpinning for Exchange Server 2007. Now we know it's a part of the shipping operating system: the radically new command line tool that can either supplement or completely replace GUI-based administration.

#3: Windows Server Virtualization. Even pared down a bit, the Viridian project will still provide enterprises with the single most effective tool to date for reducing total cost of ownership...to emerge from Microsoft. Many will argue virtualization is still an open market, thanks to VMware; and for perhaps the next few years, VMware may continue to be the feature leader in this market.

#4: Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA). That's right, Microsoft has actually standardized the error - more accurately, the protocol by which applications report to the system what errors they have uncovered. You'd think this would already have been done.

#5: Address Space Load Randomization (ASLR) Perhaps one of the most controversial added features already, especially since its debut in Vista, ASLR makes certain that no two subsequent instances of an operating system load the same system drivers in the same place in memory each time.

#6: SMB2 network file system. Long, long ago, SMB was adopted as the network file system for Windows. While it was an adequate choice at the time, Russinovich believes, "SMB has kind of outlived its life as a scalable, high-performance network file system."

#7: Kernel Transaction Manager. This is a feature which developers can take advantage of, which could greatly reduce, if not eliminate, one of the most frequent causes of System Registry and file system corruption: multiple threads seeking access to the same resource.

#8: Clean service shutdown. One of Windows' historical problems concerns its system shutdown procedure. In XP, once shutdown begins, the system starts a 20-second timer. After that time is up, it signals the user whether she wants to terminate the application herself, perhaps prematurely. For Windows Server, that same 20-second timer may be the lifeclock for an application, even one that's busy spooling ever-larger blocks of data to the disk.

#9: Parallel session creation. "Prior to Server 2008, session creation was a serial operation," Russinovich reminded us. "If you've got a Terminal Server system, or you've got a home system where you're logging into more than one user at the same time, those are sessions. And the serialization of the session initialization caused a bottleneck on large Terminal Services systems. So Monday morning, everybody gets to work, they all log onto their Terminal Services system like a few hundred people supported by the system, and they've all got to wait in line to have their session initialized, because of the way session initialization was architected."

#10: The self-healing NTFS file system. Ever since the days of DOS, an error in the file system meant that a volume had to be taken offline for it to be remedied. In WS2K8, a new system service works in the background that can detect a file system error, and perform a healing process without anyone taking the server down.
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Espresso · Feb 22, 2008

I don't buy this "flys a lot faster than Vista" argument I hear about 2008 Server. 2003 Server was known to be a bit faster than XP but Vista and 2008 Server are built on the same code (SP1) and should run pretty much the same. I ran 2008 Server for ~4 months but just installed Vista SP1 RTM and if anything, Vista SP1 is faster.

markymoo · Feb 22, 2008

I dont know what hardware you got. I never ran Vista SP1 i took Vista off before SP1 came about. Server has all multimedia missing for example WMP, DirectX. Vista has Aero Glass and that alone takes up 500mb. I like that you add just the software you need not have loads installed you don't need. A similar compare like 2000 NT 5 and XP NT 5.1 are similar code but 2000 runs faster. I had a great experience with first time install with Server but i didn't with pre SP1 Vista and it ran heavy even on a fast pc after tweaking. It seems they got it right and no doubt lessons learnt with Vista. In benchmark tests Server is reporting to be 10% faster.

Espresso · Feb 23, 2008

10% faster than pre SP1 Vista? No surprise there but I doubt if there'll be an appreciable difference if you compare it to SP1.

Server has all multimedia missing for example WMP, DirectX
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Server has DirectX10 and Vista Glass. It has Windows Media Player and photo gallery as well.

Vista has Aero Glass and that alone takes up 500mb. I like that you add just the software you need not have loads installed you don't need.
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You don't have to enable it in Vista if you don't want, and it still takes up the same amount of space on a Server machine, even if you don't have it installed. All of that stuff is kept in the winsxs folder.

sukarof · Apr 19, 2008

I tried Windows server 2008. And here I thought that Vista Ultimate was the fastest OS (on my machine)
Its a bit configuring to make it desktop version (ie Vista features, enabling some services and manually download some drivers.) Some software needs the server version and that is the killer for me (if I ever think of buying it). I only have desktop version of FDISR and Shadowprotect I guess W2008 wont run in a standard snapshot in FDISR?
but to me it seems that W2008 server is what Vista should have been after playing around with it for a while. I hear some evil rumors that it doesnt contain DRM and that would explain some of its speed?

Meriadoc · Apr 19, 2008

I've purchased and been running Windows Server 2008 for a few days and pretty much pleased with it after Windows Server 2003, which was about my favourite Microsoft OS and at the moment it looks to be the best OS of MS to date IMO.

Add and remove components are now neatly configurable from 'Server Manager.' Server'08 comes with all the themes, Aero and programs but you need to set this up.

(Trial can be extended up to 240 days)

markymoo · Apr 19, 2008

@sukarof

I now reading reports Server 2008 is 11 - 17 per cent faster than Vista SP1. Did you still find it much faster when you installed all the Desktop experience? I notice other things in the Desktop Experience is included from the multimedia of Vista. I'm sure less overhead and less processes which is what makes it faster not just DRM. It has to be responsive for a server environment.

Heres a review
http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2008/022108-windows-2008-server-test.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/18/windows_server_2008_vista_desktop/

It seems that, wherever you look, Windows Server 2008 is almost universally acclaimed. And rightly so - I believe that it is a fantastic operating system release (let's face it, Windows Server 2003 and R2 were very good, too) and is packed full of features that have the potential to add significant value to solutions.
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sukarof · Apr 20, 2008

I couldnt see any difference in speed after I enabled Aero. Well, if the animations are enabled it of course feels a tiny bit slower, but thats the way it has to be I guess otherwise you wouldnt see the animations
Maybe it all comes down to what kind of hardware is installed?

As I mentioned in several posts I fell Vista feels atleast as fast (and now WS2008 even faster) as XP, even with Aero.
I dont know if my HW is state of the art, but maybe thats why my experience differs from all those that claims that Vista is bloated and slows down:

Intel Dual Core 2.66
4GB RAM
SATA HD
Nvidia 8800GTS.

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