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Comment by tiernano | Hacker News Reader

Someone posted that 2k was the last nt edition without bloat... I think that was wrong (plus comment seems to have been deleted). 2k3, 2k8, 2k8r2, 2k12, 2k12r2, 2016 and 2019 all have no bloat or random crap... 2022 is mostly the same.... And comes with (chrome) edge too... Since the xp days I have always skipped the home/pro/workstation editions of windows and used server... Gave more features I needed, like hyper v, and felt more stable... Plus less crap...

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I've also used Server 2019 on a desktop and it's pretty solid. A couple of pointers:

- If you're considered a "student" by any means, you probably have access to an institutional email address that gives you access to Azure for Students. Through the Azure site, you can download an ISO for any LTSC edition of Windows Server (including Datacenter) and get a valid license key. This is a great way of saving money and avoiding sketchy key resellers.

- Driver support is basic out of the box. The PC I used for Windows Server has an AMD graphics card, which normally comes with GPU drivers as soon as you install a consumer version of Windows. This doesn't happen automatically with Windows Server. When you download the GPU drivers from AMD, the installer will detect that you're running Server and error out, but you can tell Device Manager to install drivers from your C:\AMD folder and it will work fine (minus the fancy GUI control panel, which is arguably bloatware itself). Something similar should work for Nvidia cards.

- Normal Win32 applications work great (I used Chrome, Office, IntelliJ, and a number of other everyday apps and they worked perfectly). However, you don't have access to the Windows Store, so installing UWP applications that aren't part of the base system (i.e., anything other than Settings, pretty much) is a pain.

There's a fairly active community of folks gaming on the major public cloud providers, which only provide images for Windows Server, but games work just fine. In fact, NVIDIA provides an official gaming AMI based on Windows Server: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-xrrke4dwueqv6

Driver support isn't a given. There's lots of normal hardware which may never be server qualified. You can make a desktop that will run server fine, but it's kind of a Linux situation; you can't pick random parts and assume they'll work.

Heard several people claim that, along with stories about how Office 365 wouldn't work, or Photoshop, or recent browsers etc. Each time I would check I was able to call their bluff.

I have yet to run into this problem, do you have any examples? I don’t have any exotic hardware outside of the ThinkPad X220 dock which nowadays only works with Linux.

Yes, most startling was Intel iGPU drivers not installing, as well as AMD GPU drivers not installing for non-enterprise cards. Then people have mentioned wireless and bluetooth typically being nonfunctional. Your touchpad may not work if it is I2C or if the PS2 bridge is USB. You may also be unable to get computer peripherals to work if they are not designed to be driverless.

I suspect power management is also poor.

> most startling was Intel iGPU drivers not installing

On which version? I'm running Server 2016 (Datacenter) with an Intel iGPU, and I don't recall having to do anything special to get it working.

The Intel CPU in a Surface. From memory the mobile iGPU had a different model than what shows up in a desktop. I also read AMD iGPUs were failing.

Not a problem with drivers per se, but Bluetooth is totally unavailable on Server SKUs, outside installing a proprietary Bluetooth stack outside the windows one.

Another issue I've run into was Server 2016 not having trackpad drivers for a Dell laptop's I2C bus/trackpad.

Thinkpads are a good bet for Linux compatibility because they are very popular with Red Hat and Ubuntu kernel developers. They’ll do whatever it takes to make Linux run well on their machines.

In a sense yes, but like my current Latitude 7xxx and those original Thinkpad Xxx it’s just paying for a premium product and getting premium hardware and premium chips inside so I get hardware that staffs a development team that makes good drivers and that has manufacturers that staffs a development team good enough to put it on fwupd.

no tux no bux

Way back in the day I played Max Payne on a Win2k server and it worked great. Couldn't make the OS crash even if I tried. Best MS OS ever.

Better than Windows ME?!

Win Me was créme de la créme. I wonder of they could run it emulated longer that on bare metal.

Everything after 2008R2 is significantly more bloated. I still interact with a few 2008R2 VMs at work and every time I log on to one I'm actually a little freaked out by how much more responsive it is.

I was always a fan of NT4, personally speaking.

NT4 blue screened on me when I was demoing IIS process separation. It was an auditorium full of very technical people, who mostly already knew me from one place or another. Fortunately, I was quite good as a stand up comedian.

I felt vindicated when 98 did the same with billg at COMDEX (or was it CES?).

NT4 had an architectural flaw that was introduced to make some people happier - many device drivers started to run in kernel space and their bugs were able to crash the whole machine, unlike 3.5, where a crashed driver could be reloaded.

Me too. While I think 2k was peak when it comes to a usable, lean desktop os, to me, NT4 was the first Windows NT that was "complete" and usable, the "we're done" milestone. Can't find the proper expression for it really, but it just has a special place in my IT heart.

You're not alone.

But you can't run any game because DirectX. I've copied some files from Windows98 and was manage to use some games in windowed mode.

How is the compatibility with everyday applications?

I haven't found any app that doesn't run on windows server that does on win desktop. I don't game, so never tired games... Wsl on 2019 was limited to v1, but think that got to v2 on 2022... Docker works, all dev tools work... Yea, all good!

The issue is hardware. Most gaming hardware does not have server qualified drivers which may mean you can't use your hardware. Issues normally with WiFi cards and GPUs, most other things will work. No chance of running Windows Server on a laptop.

The qualification is to prevent random crashes; it's not really needed, but it is hard to impossible to disable last I checked.

Never had an issue with drivers... Was running nvidia cards and the standard nvidia drivers worked without issue... Also did manage to run win2003 on a laptop at one stage... Can't remember if drivers for wifi worked... The machine was hard wired in...

I've had wifi, bluetooth, and AMD GPUs fail to work, as well as integrated Intel GPUs. This may just be a 2019+ problem. 2008 might run, I haven't checked.

You may also find power management drivers don't install.

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