Windows server 2008

Hi, Today I got to inform you about one of the strongest and finest versions of windows all over the world. Windows Server 2008 is a combination of vista and the max performance on the network all this stuff is according to me

Also Windows Server 2008 delivers new features that customers wanted, whereas Vista delivers new features that Microsoft thought its customers should want. However, it seems there may be more to it than that. Maybe Server 2008 really does perform better than Vista

Windows Server 2008 performs better, even with the Aero features enabled, than Vista ever did on the same hardware. To me, this a bit strange, even if a lot of services are still disabled, as the codebase is pretty much the same as Vista.

And here is the research from (Exo.blog) (The official blog for the editors and research staff and of the exo.performance.network) about the difference in performance between Windows Server 2008 an d Windows Vista

Quoted form the topic Windows ("Workstation" 2008 - Vista Done Right?)
If you've been paying attention to the various industry news outlets you've no doubt come across the story about the Microsoft engineer advocating Windows Server 2008 as a "workstation" OS. According to him, if you make the right tweaks - installing the Desktop Experience feature, modify a few missing utilities, tuning the scheduler - you can turn Server 2008 into a fairly convincing Vista knock-off, one that's faster and more scalable than the original.

Curious, we decided to see for ourselves just how well Server 2008 stacks-up to Vista with Service Pack 1. To make the comparison as even as possible, we disabled all of the UI goodies on Vista (i.e. set the Visual Effects to "Adjust for Best Performance") and installed the Desktop Experience feature under Server 2008. We also enabled SuperFetch and the Indexing services on the Server 2008 installation (both are disabled by default) and adjusted the "Processor scheduling" option to favor Programs (i.e. the way it's set under Windows Vista).

For hardware, we reused our Dell XPS M1710 test bed (Core 2 Duo T7200 at 2GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB 7200RPM disk) from our previous Vista testing projects. Both OS were configured to use the entire disk as a single partition, and we installed the same device drivers under each version.

The actual test scenarios involved a straight execution of the OfficeBench test script (in a 10-iteration loop) as well as a separate multi-process workload package featuring the ADO, MAPI and WMP Stress workload generation objects (executing continuously for 10 minutes in a 3x3x3 multi-instance configuration).
Given all the press surrounding Vista Service Pack 1 and the supposed parity of the SP1 and Server 2008 kernels, we were expecting to find little or no performance delta between the two platforms. So we were understandably surprised when repeated test runs showed Windows Server 2008 outperforming Windows Vista w/SP1 by a margin of 11-17%.

Clearly, there is more going on within Server 2008 than simply a few boot-time kernel switches. The very tangible performance disparity between our "Workstation" 2008 configuration and Vista, even with Service Pack 1 installed, shows that Microsoft is capable of squeezing more out of the shared "Windows 6.1" code base if/when they choose to do so.

As for what's dragging Vista down (the number of running processes and services was nearly identical across both OS and in each test scenario), that's a bit harder to define. Perhaps the Server 2008 team decided to eschew some of the more desktop-centric and/or consumer-focused (i.e. CPU cycle-sapping) features of the Vista core (DRM comes to mind). Regardless, now that we know how much better things could have been, it'll be that much harder to settle for the sluggishness and bloat of Windows Vista.

Our recommendation: If you have an MSDN account or otherwise have access to a Server 2008 license, check it out for yourself. You may find that Windows "Workstation" 2008 is the Windows Vista you've been waiting for all along.



System Requirements:
Processor: • Minimum: 1GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4GHz (x64 processor)
• Recommended: 2GHz or faster
Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required that's if you are willing to install windows server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems.
Memory: • Minimum: 512MB RAM
• Recommended: 2GB RAM or greater
• Maximum (32-bit systems): 4GB (Standard) or 64GB (Enterprise and Datacenter)
• Maximum (64-bit systems): 32GB (Standard) or 2TB (Enterprise, Datacenter and Itanium-based Systems)
Available Disk Space: • Minimum: 10GB
• Recommended: 40GB or greater
Note: Computers with more than 16GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files.
Drive: DVD-ROM drive
Display and Peripherals: • Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor
• Keyboard
• Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

After reading all of that stuff you are now interested about seeing some screen shots to this topic:



Now how to install?
1. Insert the appropriate Windows Server 2008 installation media into your DVD drive. If you don't have an installation DVD for Windows Server 2008, you can download one from the download links at the bottom of the post.
2. Reboot the computer and press any key to boot from CD or DVD when you are told so.



3. When prompted for an installation language and other regional options, make your selection and press next.



4. Next, press Install Now to begin the installation process.



5. Product activation is now also identical with that found in Windows Vista. Enter your Product ID in the next window, and if you want to automatically activate Windows the moment the installation finishes, click next.



6. If you do not have the Product ID available right now, you can leave the box empty, and click next. You will need to provide the Product ID later, after the
server installation is over. Press No. But I recommend you to use one of these:


7. Because you did not provide the correct ID, the installation process cannot determine what kind of Windows Server 2008 license you own, and therefore you will be prompted to select your correct version in the next screen, assuming you are telling the truth and will provide the correct ID to prove your selection later on.



8. If you did provide the right Product ID, select the Full version of the right Windows version you're prompted, and click next.



9. Read and accept the license terms by clicking to select the checkbox and pressing next.



10. In the "Which type of installation do you want?" window, click the only available option – Custom (Advanced).



11. In the "Where do you want to install Windows?", if you're installing the server on a regular IDE hard disk, click to select the first disk, usually Disk 0, and click Next.



If you're installing on a hard disk that's connected to a SCSI controller, click Load Driver and insert the media provided by the controller's manufacturer.
If you must, you can also click Drive Options and manually create a partition on the destination hard disk.

12. The installation now begins, and you can go and have lunch. Copying the setup files from the DVD to the hard drive only takes about one minute. However, extracting and uncompressing the files takes a good deal longer. After 20 minutes, the operating system is installed. The exact time it takes to install server core depends upon your hardware specifications. Faster disks will perform much faster installs… Windows Server 2008 takes up approximately 10 GB of hard drive space.



The installation process will reboot your computer, so, if in step #10 you inserted a floppy disk (either real or virtual), make sure you remove it before going to lunch, as you'll find the server hanged without the ability to boot (you can bypass this by configuring the server to boot from a CD/DVD and then from the hard disk in the booting order on the server's BIOS)

13. Then the server reboots you'll be prompted with the new Windows Server 2008 type of login screen. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to log in.



14. Click on Other User.



15. The default Administrator is blank, so just type Administrator and press Enter.



16. You will be prompted to change the user's password. You have no choice but to press Ok.



17. In the password changing dialog box, leave the default password blank (duh, read step #15…), and enter a new, complex, at-least-7-characters-long new
password twice. A password like "topsecret" is not valid (it's not complex), but one like "T0pSecreT!" sure is. Make sure you remember it.



18. Someone thought it would be cool to nag you once more, so now you'll be prompted to accept the fact that the password had been changed. Press Ok.



19. Finally, the desktop appears and that's it, you're logged on and can begin working. You will be greeted by an assistant for the initial server configuration, and after performing some initial configuration tasks, you will be able to start working.