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Comment by kabdib | Hacker News Reader

The big howler for me was Cortana running as part of Windows Server 2016, by default.

Look: I'm not really happy running Windows Server to begin with [HN crowd: a decision that was not mine, by the way], so why do you have to have this stupid thing downloading and running all kinds of random executables that I have no idea what they do in my bloody server farm? And yup, I have logs off all those things, and pager traffic as a witness.

Yes, you can turn Cortana off. No, you shouldn't have to. This decision beggars the imagination.

(I like to think that the PM behind Cortana-makes-sense-in-a-server was the same nimrod who also shipped the touchscreen support in Server 2012R2 and the all-caps menu nonsense that plagued Visual Studio and Office for a few years, until Microsoft got a clue and realized they were honestly, really and truly pissing off customers. Someone needs to take that person out back of Building 9 and show them the instruments).

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>The big howler for me was Cortana running as part of Windows Server 2016, by default.

Cortana is not running as part of Windows Server 2016 by default . The default install option is no GUI and that option does not install Cortana. You will explicit have to choose that you want to install the "Desktop experience" in order to get Cortana. If you select to add an optional feature named "Desktop experience" it is fair enough that Cortana is there since she is (or now was) a part of Microsoft Desktop experience. Most typical server workloads run fine without the GUI (and Cortana).

Windows Server 2016 Installation Options: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/d...

Windows Server 2016 (Desktop Experience). Choosing this option is useful when a GUI is required; for example, to provide backward compatibility for an application that cannot be run on a Server Core installation. All server roles and features are supported. This configuration is the equivalent of Server Graphical Shell on Windows Server 2012 R2.

Maybe he wants GUI experience, like Win NT

Let's be fair here.

Apart from AD and Exchange, the only Windows-only server programs you may need to install are likely to be legacy domain specific, professional kind of stuff. I've seen tax-filing stuff, finance regulation compliance, medical or judicial "solutions" that would only run (poorly) on Windows, usually with mind-boggling requirements (run as domain admin! Server 2003 only!) and they simply won't run without the GUI.

In other words: usually, if you need Windows server, you're going to need the GUI.

Note that I say this as a Linux admin who has only run Windows very occasionally (and reluctantly!) in the past 20 years.

usually, if you need Windows server, you're going to need the GUI.

This absolutely is not true and is a bizarre assertion to start with “Let’s be fair here”.

I manage multiple HIPPA-compliant networks for medical companies.

YES YOU DO NEED WINDOWS. NOTHING works without the damned GUI because almost nobody knows how to write CLI-usable programs any longer.

Look, as far as I'm concerned and as an SRE, server-side Windows is legacy. (With the only already mentioned exceptions being AD and Exchange.) And client-side Windows is ... well something I don't use personally anyways.

Bottom line is, legacy stuff gonna legacy.

We run hundreds of GUI-less Windows Servers at our company. Works really well. On Azure.

Yep, likewise. I think the only thing that required the Desktop Experience off the top of my head was WSUS, but we have all sorts of other roles running on Server Core without any issues at all.

And it's very easy to administer all of them at once. With PowerShell scripts. There's nothing like it on other platforms.

Sure you can, and what's the value added compared to any Linux? The joy of having to deal with CALs and licensing audits? If you just like writing cheques, RedHat is an option.

The number of roles with no or effectively no Powershell cmdlets is staggering, and remote MMC require punching a dozen holes in the firewall when it even works. Even then there are many roles like iis and adfs that are still effectively broken with no gui.

It’s a perfectly fair assertion given the abundance of commercial software in active use which is a “server” written into the back end of a desktop application. They are not written as stand alone Services.

Remember this is the real world we live in, where once a developer learns how to build a Windows application in Visual Studio, everything becomes a Visual Studio app based on the same template. Consider yourself lucky when the developer uses a newer version of Visual a Studio and dotNet than the one they started with a decade ago.

In the perfect world, yes we would be paying developers high salaries and allowing lots of “down time” for retraining into the current version of dotNet, and allowing plenty of time to upgrade legacy applications to current versions of Windows.

In the real world we still have that Windows 2000 server sitting around with a printed sign taped to the keyboard saying, “DO NOT UPDATE: PLEASE SEE JOEL BEFORE TOUCHING” only nobody remembers who Joel is and he left the company before Confluence arrived. All we know is that we can’t even install Remote Desktop Services because when Joel tried that it broke the application software. That sign appeared on the machine a week after that incident because that’s how long it took Joel to repair the server to the point that the application would work again.

Yes. As a very happy Windows user, both server and desktop, I'm always scratching my head about the FUD comments I see here about Windows. Most are simply untrue, else they're vast distortions. It makes me wonder whose behind them and why. Is it just ultra-fandom, or is someone trying an orgranized attempt to manipulate markets through mis-information?

Actually it gives one a very easy filter to spot the people whose opinion is based on actual experience vs something in their fertile imagination.

> I'm always scratching my head about the FUD comments I see here about Windows. Most are simply untrue, else they're vast distortions.

Were they always untrue, or were they true for some older version of Windows? Many non-Windows users here have used Windows some time in the past, and their views on Windows are based on that experience.

Running with no gui cripples the majority of roles. It's easier to list the roles and features that work than those that don't

The "default" install is headless, yup. Yet, if you want something usable in many environments, you'll need the GUI. We use third party (and Microsoft) tools that do pixels (and PowerShell still doesn't do everything).

So if you were given the choices:

1. Headless (lots of stuff doesn't work, especially third-party utilities)

2. GUI

3. GUI without Cortana and other crazy

... which option would you pick?

There is no #3, by the way.

> it is fair enough that Cortana is there since she is (or now was) a part of Microsoft Desktop experience

I don't care how you spin this, it's very bad practice for a "server OS" to download and run random code. Making Windows Server secure is hard enough without this nonsense. "Oh, Cortana comes for free with the Desktop Experience" is just begging the question, it doesn't make the underlying bad practices of that Windows component somehow okay.

I seem to remember that even when Cortana is shut off, it was found to be listening and sending telemetry back to Microsoft. Based on their past behaviour, I'd guess that even is it is "removed", those elements will remain.

I don't recall seeing a way to remove Cortana, just disable it. (Yup, fills me with confidence).

Well, speech recognition executables want access tnrough the firewall regularly, regardless of Cortana. So yeah, something is being sent.

Oh, I'm sorry for pointing out the fact that speech recognition wants outbound access through the firewall even on Cortana-less LTSC. That must be so hurtful! Please forgive me, I'm on your side, I don't even vaccinate!

Funny how the LTSC version is the only Windows version that works best as a standalone desktop OS, where you install the software you want and no updates will break your configuration every half a year. But of course it's not recommended for desktop use, and you can't get a license as an individual user (I think even business users have restrictions).

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