Windows Vista Vs Windows Server 2008 - Which of these OSs is better for a PC?

Hi,

I've been messing with Vista last six months on a very good PC (P4/1.5Gb) and the experience was really bad. It's not a notice that Windows Vista has become one of the worst MS creations, finally I've returned to XP. But, for somehow, I've received a DVD of Windows Server 2008 and thought what if I try it as a workstation?

Found the time and did it. Well, Server 2008 is not a rival of Vista, it's a rival of XP!

WS2008 installed just with the necessary for a desktop it's a very good option if you want the Vista look & feel and the stability of XP. Some overviews:

PROS:
- Good recognition of devices and easy installation of drivers.
- Much better look than XP.
- MUCH better performance than Vista.
- Resources consumption less than what one can think about a Server SO.
- Very (VERY) stable.
- If used for Windows sysadmin tasks, it's probably the best value.

CONS:
- Compatibility: some apps. like MS Live/Messenger were very difficult to configure, but works at last. Some others, like Outlook Connector for Lotus, never worked, or at least, I've couldn't.
- More system space consumption: 2008 took ~1Gb. more of disk space than XP.

If someone wants to try, I suggest first using a virtual machine (like VMWare) and works with compatibility with some apps.

In the meantime, I'm waiting to get a copy of Windows 7 Beta...

 

 

 

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I'm using Server 2008, the only thing I can't run are most of the antivirus solutions I use without paying like tons of money for enterprise versions.

I'm running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. I got my license for free from my college =D!

xboxrulz

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I remember trying Windows Vista when it was in beta on my old Pentium 4 computer with 2GB RAM. The experience was very bad, with the operating system lagging and freezing up for a while every time I launched a program and opened a file. However, now with my new computer with a Core 2 Duo processor, Windows Vista is running very smoothly without major problems, although it did have Blue Screens of Death for a while which I fixed with a driver update (after which Windows Vista happily updated to a older driver and made the BSODs appear again, forcing me into another manual update).

I suppose one of the reasons for the performance of Windows Server 2008 is that it doesn't utilise the Aero Glass desktop enhacement theme (which is known to chew up graohical processing power). Also, Windows Server 2008 was designed with stability and performance in mind, rather than for just the new looks and features of Windows Vista. Hopefully, Windows 7 will be better than Windows Vista in terms of usability and performance.

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I'm running Windows Server 2008 w/ Aero on, it's actually faster than w/ out it since the rendering is all done on GPU instead of CPU, just need at least 2 GB of memory and you should be fine.

I got 4 GB DDR2-800 so my machine is running really smooth.

xboxrulz

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I am runing Vista Ultimate, but i think Windows 7 will be better, i will try it.

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How about DDR2-800 >?

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What do u mean?

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I think he means that using faster RAM like DDR2-800 rather than the more basic DDR2-667 would make running Windows 7 smoother and better.

If your a technology enthusiast and want the fastest speeds, you may also want to try DDR3 memory RAM sticks, with speeds ranging from 800MHz to 1600MHz.

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That may be true, but it's DDR2-800 that's basically the standard speed because it's the most proliferated throughout the market. The only boards that support DDR3 are Core i7 based or Phenom II AM3s.

xboxrulz

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I'm running Windows Vista, Home Premium which came with my laptop, but I don't really know any big differences from Ultimate.. Vista annoys with some stuff, but when you do some stuff with options, configuration and so on.. make it work like "you" want, for me it's quite stable now and most of the stuff works, even though there were some software, usually older which did not want to work, for university lets say Maple 9.5 and Oracle 9 didn't want to install, maple 9.5 didn't work, but I managed to install Oracle by using Compatibility mode Windows XP SP2 and it seems to work quite alright..

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