Windows Vista vs Windows Server 2008 (Workstation)
Last week, I decided that the time has come to replace my current desktop PC. I’ve been skimming through a couple of articles and reviews in order to put together a new home developer rig. Now I’ve come to the point that I know what I want, except for the operating system that I want to install.
I’ve recently upgraded my current desktop from Windows XP to Windows Vista and I must say that I’m not particularly happy about it. Its slow, slow, slow and did I already mention that it is slow? Sure you say, an older desktop that is up for replacement is always slow. Not really actually. I’ve never had any performance problems when running XP, even while running a VM.
With Vista, its a whole different ball-game. I was completely baffled by looking at the amount of processes/services that were running after I performed a clean install. I tried some tweaking, but nothing really helped. Besides being slow, the whole operating system hangs sometimes with for no apparent reason (no processor or disk activity whatsoever).
There are also a couple of applications I couldn’t get to work correctly:
- Windows Live Messenger (not that I’m using this much, but I figured this should at least work).
- RapidSvn (can’t even get it to start).
- AVG anti-virus (doesn’t want to automatically download virus updates).
- A Haupauge Win-TV card I bought not that long ago.
- …
Well, if you don’t like it, go back to XP then. Vista has its improvements as well. As you may or may not know, I’m a big fan of LUA (Least User Access). This was a real PITA in XP, but Vista SP1 comes with a lot of improvements on this. Besides, I wanted to play around with IIS 7, so an upgrade to Vista looked like the right thing to do.
Last week, I found this link on Twitter accompanied by this article that really got me interested in using Windows Server 2008 as a workstation. I downloaded a trial version last weekend and I must say that I’m very impressed by its performance (although I was running it as a VM on Vista :-)). According to some other articles and benchmarks I’ve read, Windows Server 2008 outperforms Vista with 11% to 17%. This article mentions that Visual Studio 2008 really flies and that VM’s also run better. Windows 2008 also ships with IIS 7.0 and MSMQ 4.0, some technologies I want to learn in the near future. Hyper-V, also a feature of Windows Server 2008, got me interested as well.
There is one major downside to Windows Server 2008: the price tag of the standard edition is well beyond my range. Unfortunately, there is no "workstation edition". I would love to use 2008 on my new desktop PC, but its price really puts me off. I don’t mind paying for software, but there are limits to my budget as well.
If you, my dear reader, want to share your advice then I would be happy to hear from you. If you know how to get a cheap Windows Server 2008 license, then please contact me as well ;-).
Maybe I should just get over it …
It would be really awesome if we could install Win Server 2008 and get the full benefits of both Server 2008 and Vista. For example, be able to use Hyper-V and Vista Media Center.
Sounds like a good idea on the surface of it.
However a lot of new software will probably not work.
For example games may not work or even install if they have Vista checks. and major productivity applications like CAD ones for example, may have the same issues.
Also some software now comes with protection, DVD checks, EXE checks and DONGLES. These are often never built for non-VISTA software so, they will not work.
Then there are the dreaded software drivers which may totally fubar your system.
If you complain the publisher will just say “it states clearly that it’s for VISTA only”. So, you see you can seriously limit yourself going down that route. Your solution will for sure BREAK in the future imho.
Here is my radical suggestion:
Keep XP and use that for all your Windows only applications.
Games, Author DVD burning, MIRC.
Get an Ubuntu install and feel the force of FREE software.
Also it’s probably less techie to go down this route than try and make Windows 2008 Server work with all the VISTA software out there. The former may require learning from others how to do new things, the latter requires you to learn how to do thnigs that nobody may have yet discovered or is trying too.
Also later you can probably use nice Linux tools like Wine to use your Windows applications like MIRC on Ubuntu still. Not to mention all your upgrades in the future will be free. You will also find things move faster on Linux than Windows as well. No more registry hell 🙂
If you are going to change you might as well change to Ubuntu.
rjj, thats a good solution unless of course he wants to play with VISTA/WIN2008 features.
Im not sure how ubuntu would deal with the dongles/dvd checks/exe checks etc either.
Vista and win2008 are the same kernel, so the compatibility should be there. If there is a problem with an app though you can always just load a vista vm and use that.
As far as getting it…I recieved a couple free copies at a launch event. Im pretty sure I have recieved free (NFR) copies of every os since nt4. You will have to see if they have any events coming your way, they generally give out some free swag.(the last one i got vs2008, vista ultimate, win2008 32 64, plus a second license for testing it in a vm, coupon for sql server 2008 and i think im missing something else.
@Tristan: They are rather cheap here in Europe :-). Last year I went to Tech-Ed Europe and I even didn’t get and evaluation DVD.
@RJJ: I’ve been thinking about Ubuntu, but didn’t really consider it because then I need to throw away almost every software license I’ve got (yes, I’m a huge fan of open-source, but I buy software as well).
Keep us posted on what you decide. I’m in the same situation. By now I have only 220 days left of my ‘trial periode’ of Server 2008 Standard.
I hope someone will be able to crack the activation in time. I sure as hell am not buying a license, since I got my notebook with a Vista Business license on it. MicroSoft should think about a website making it able to port your Vista key in a way that you can use Server 2008 as a workstation instead.
yes the biggest challenge of MSFT future releases is compatibility ’cause they tend to break codes API’s and ABI’s their expiration was OFF like they documented for Partners Like OUR Company that the API / ABI would expire on 2007 but after SP2 on XP and boom what happened ??
as a matter of fact we create software with security on usb-dongles and any AD-HOC type but hey we recalled last year like 200-devices to support VISTA surprisingly it run on longhorn alpha and beta but on the release we clearly don’t know why it doesn’t work! 🙂
Cosumer and Developers are always on the same boat we tend to buy MSFT products documents and support from our side and the after math on the Consumer Side, just a reflection did the GIANT care about the ship that is sinking. 🙂
PEACE OUT I know most of the people on MSFT I don’t judge your work I know your work was splendid and great but I think the marketing guys killed it 😀
Bye. Signing OFF…..
@Julius I ordered a Windows Vista Ultimate OEM license to go with my new desktop. I’m not particurly happy about it, but 2008 is way out of my league (financially). Awaiting Server 2008 workstation … 🙂
Windows Server 2008, is available at a reasonable price. On amazon.co.ukm Windows Vista costs between £80 and £180, and Windows Server 2008 is £450 upwards. I neither could justify that price. But if you go to technet.microsoft.com you can get a technet subscription for £240 VAT and you get all operating systems office other software (no development stuff though). And if you also do a quick search for technet voucher/discout code, I ended up paying £199 VAT. The VAT is at 21%, so total price is £240 for all microsoft operating systems office = bargain. The license is the same, but for non-production/commercial environment, and uses the term that it’s for “evaluation” without time limits. It’s the exact same software as retail. Plus with the technet subscription you’ll get access to any new software within the subscription period too.
Before you ask I don’t work for Microsoft, but wanted WS2008 as my development environment, and it works quite well. You can add the “desktop” feature and wireless feature to make more like vista.
My only issue is that every works fine on a PC that’s about 3 years old, but got a new one and vista continuously reboots after updates and server 2008 complains about a few updates, but will be contacting Microsoft about this..
Mike.
Did you come to any conclusions on this? I’m also in the same boat. I’ve got XP 64 on my desktop (which I use for development and 3D stuff that’s requires a lot of processing power & memory). But, honestly, I was really looking forward to Vista so I could access more memory and get away from the compatibility issues.
However, my experience with VistA has been similar to yours – and confirmed by the benchrmarking done on Tom’s Hardware – ugh:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531.html
So now I’m thinking the new desktop is going to be XP 64bit as well. But, I’m playing with a lot of new .NET/WPF stuff that I think will just have better support in VistA…. ya know, if you’re going to be developing with the latest tools it seems you should be, well, running the latest OS. Blah.
Well, for students that know their way around Microsoft, they now have Windows Server 2003 R2 for free via DreamSpark. Server 2003 is like Windows XP with some Vista features like previous versions (VSS).
By October 1st, students are getting Windows Server 2008 for FREE. Yes students are getting Server 2008 for FREE via Microsoft’s own DreamSpark program.
Now I want to stay in school to reap the benefits!
Server 2008 is downloading from Dreamspark as I type this… O Yes 🙂
There’s someone who wants Vista licenses in return for Win2k08 Enterprise Server license.
try googling uneit