Windows Server 2003 - a review
-
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
-
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
Thanks for the quick review Chris. I'll be downloading it soon enough and I'll try it myself. Chris Maunder wrote: AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked. That annoys the sh*te out of me... really.. .why can't it just continue!!! :-) Regards, Brian Dela :-)
-
Thanks for the quick review Chris. I'll be downloading it soon enough and I'll try it myself. Chris Maunder wrote: AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked. That annoys the sh*te out of me... really.. .why can't it just continue!!! :-) Regards, Brian Dela :-)
-
Tim Smith wrote: DITTO Wonder how long it will take... ah well.. I'll start it sometime soon :-) Regards, Brian Dela :-)
-
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote: Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a if OS_version != accepted_OS_version instead of if OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. I had this problem, once, with Windows 2000. Later, I discovered that some hw from MS is sold only for Workstation version of the OS, not the Server. Don't ask me why.
It's not the fall that kills you: it's the sudden stop - Down by Law, Jim Jamursch (1986)
-
Thanks for the quick review Chris. I'll be downloading it soon enough and I'll try it myself. Chris Maunder wrote: AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked. That annoys the sh*te out of me... really.. .why can't it just continue!!! :-) Regards, Brian Dela :-)
Brian Delahunty wrote: That annoys the sh*te out of me... really.. .why can't it just continue!!! +1! Nick, are you listening here? Tell the Windows team to let it continue on to the rest of the files!
any idiot can write haiku you just stop at seventeenth syl -ThinkGeek Fortunes
-
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
I've been loving WS 2003, and I'll be wiping XP for it when it goes RTM. You may find this guide from NeoWin helpful Chris: Windows Server 2003 as a Workstation Guide [^]
any idiot can write haiku you just stop at seventeenth syl -ThinkGeek Fortunes
-
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote: if OS_version != accepted_OS_version instead of if OS_version >= accepted_OS_version As a point of interest... what is the version number? Paul We all will feed the worms and trees
So don't be shy - Queens of the Stone Age, Mosquito Song -
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
Hey Chris, What build did you install? Nick
-
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
One annoying aspect to me was the shutdown screen. By default you had to specify the reason/comments why you were shutting down the system. I had to figure out how to supress that.
-
Thanks for the quick review Chris. I'll be downloading it soon enough and I'll try it myself. Chris Maunder wrote: AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked. That annoys the sh*te out of me... really.. .why can't it just continue!!! :-) Regards, Brian Dela :-)
I wish such operations had transaction-like semantics. If an error occurs you should be able to abort or continue & eventually commit or abort. Wasn't MS integrating MSSQL into the filesystem, or have been eating the wrong mushrooms again? :-D -- Shine, enlighten me - shine Shine, awaken me - shine Shine for all your suffering - shine
-
Chris Maunder wrote: if OS_version != accepted_OS_version instead of if OS_version >= accepted_OS_version As a point of interest... what is the version number? Paul We all will feed the worms and trees
So don't be shy - Queens of the Stone Age, Mosquito Song5.2 --Mike-- THERE IS NO THERE IS NO BUT THERE IS MAGIC PIXIE DUST BUSINESS GENIE CODE PROJECT Homepage | RightClick-Encrypt | 1ClickPicGrabber "You have Erica on the brain" - Jon Sagara to me
-
I wish such operations had transaction-like semantics. If an error occurs you should be able to abort or continue & eventually commit or abort. Wasn't MS integrating MSSQL into the filesystem, or have been eating the wrong mushrooms again? :-D -- Shine, enlighten me - shine Shine, awaken me - shine Shine for all your suffering - shine
Yeah, but they keep on pushing it back. It's supposed to be integrated by the time Longhorn arrives.
-
Thanks for the quick review Chris. I'll be downloading it soon enough and I'll try it myself. Chris Maunder wrote: AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked. That annoys the sh*te out of me... really.. .why can't it just continue!!! :-) Regards, Brian Dela :-)
I'll second that. It would be a lot better if you could configure it to carry on after a failure, then afterwards give you a little report (XML/XSLT => HTML ;)) listing what didn't work and why. :cool: Anna :rose: Homepage | My life in tears
"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia GraeschTrouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Add-In for Visual C++
-
I wish such operations had transaction-like semantics. If an error occurs you should be able to abort or continue & eventually commit or abort. Wasn't MS integrating MSSQL into the filesystem, or have been eating the wrong mushrooms again? :-D -- Shine, enlighten me - shine Shine, awaken me - shine Shine for all your suffering - shine
I'll second that. Operating systems must become predictable.
-
I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. The constraints on installing you own themes (a throwback to XP) is, to me, a little petty, so the initial look and feel is taking some getting used to (I avoided XP and stuck with W2K), but as far as ease of use and stability it seems to be a winner. Pros
- Installing stuff (mostly) just works
- IIS 6 and ASP.NET. Oh yeah.
- It's locked down far better than any previous OS I've used.
- UI enhancements that the rest of the known world has had with XP are nice. Grouped taskbar icons, hidden tray icons, better folder views etc.
- Again, system enhancements from XP (such as rollback) are great.
- Lots of niggling little things have been fixed, eg annoying popups when you remove hardware, that 'configure your server' dialog that would not go away.
Cons
- Several device drivers have failed to install (Bluetooth PCMCIA card, Microsoft intellimouse) becuase the drivers seem to do a
if OS_version != accepted_OS_versioninstead ofif OS_version >= accepted_OS_version. Running installs under compatibility mode doesn't help. - Couldn't get it to deal with 2 network cards when one of those cards had load balancing turned on.
- AFAIK they still haven't fixed that crappy problem whereby if you perform an operation on a group of files and it fails on one, then it stops there and then. Annoying when you are trying to delete tons of files and one is locked.
Comments
- Getting themes, audio and video drivers and a bunch of other little things working took some thinking but once you realise that it's simply a case of turning on the required service it all works fine.
- I had fears about performance but this can be tuned. It's a server product, after all, but they kept all the UI enhancements available just in case.
- Please let me install non-MS themes. I'm dying to get the MacOS one up and running ;)
- It's big. No 10Gb HDD's for this bad boy.
I've only had it up and running for a day so have been spending most of the time installing the zillion's of little app's and tweaks that make life bearable. I'd be interested to hear other peoples experiences with this beast. cheers, Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote: I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. Chris, just one question: Why did you install Win Server 2003 on a laptop? Was it just an available computer, surely you don't actually run a server off your laptop? -Nick Parker
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. - Samuel Johnson
-
I'll second that. It would be a lot better if you could configure it to carry on after a failure, then afterwards give you a little report (XML/XSLT => HTML ;)) listing what didn't work and why. :cool: Anna :rose: Homepage | My life in tears
"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia GraeschTrouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Add-In for Visual C++
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote: listing what didn't work and why It's usually down to "Nut loose on keyboard", isn't it? :-D Gavin Greig "Haw, you're no deid," girned Charon. "Get aff ma boat or ah'll report ye." Matthew Fitt - The Hoose O Haivers: The Twelve Trauchles O Heracles.
-
Chris Maunder wrote: I've installed Windows Server 2003 on my laptop (my primary machine) and, so far, I'm impressed. Chris, just one question: Why did you install Win Server 2003 on a laptop? Was it just an available computer, surely you don't actually run a server off your laptop? -Nick Parker
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. - Samuel Johnson
I have the same setup on my laptop as we have on our servers (give or take a bit of clustering and a few Gb's of RAM). cheers, Chris Maunder
-
I'll second that. It would be a lot better if you could configure it to carry on after a failure, then afterwards give you a little report (XML/XSLT => HTML ;)) listing what didn't work and why. :cool: Anna :rose: Homepage | My life in tears
"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia GraeschTrouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Add-In for Visual C++
Yep. Good Idea :-) Regards, Brian Dela :-)
-
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote: listing what didn't work and why It's usually down to "Nut loose on keyboard", isn't it? :-D Gavin Greig "Haw, you're no deid," girned Charon. "Get aff ma boat or ah'll report ye." Matthew Fitt - The Hoose O Haivers: The Twelve Trauchles O Heracles.
Lol that's me. :-D Anna :rose: Homepage | My life in tears
"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia GraeschTrouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Add-In for Visual C++