HR Geeks

I attended a Win2k8 Server launch “party” a few weeks ago and one of the big new features is the ability to opt to run server core. I believe the quote was: Now here’s something you UNIX guys are really going to enjoy!

If you’re not up on your Windows tech, core is basically just a stripped down version of Windows Server 2008 w/no GUI. The screenshot above is all you get… just a command prompt. Everything is done from a command line. You can click all you want, but all it’s going to do is close the black window.

After demo’ing the stripped down OS to my peers it became clear why Microsoft has decided to offer the core version… sell more books and training classes. None of the other Windows only admins in my office get it. Not even a little. They think it’s great that they get a “more secure operating system,” but basic items like changing the IP address or installing a NIC driver have already resulted in endless scribbles on notepads and post-its on cube walls.

This next screenshot might be a little confusing to you. It’s server core running Hyper-V running server core running Notepad…

Normally on a GUI-less UNIX install I can’t bring up xemacs… I do love the Windows 3.11 style file browser. Good to see they’re reusing quality code

For the record, I am using it. It’s been great for the our VM boxes as it uses <300MB of RAM and has incredibly low overhead for Windows. Not core Linux install low, but decent. I’ve already come to the realization that anytime there are issues with these boxes I’m going to be the one getting paged =\