Hey all. Long time reader first time poster.
I'm planning on building a new gaming rig. With XP's addressable memory limitations and questionable DX10 support it's ruled out for me. (I think this was the general consensus in the "XP vs Vista" poll. Plus XP performance is a tad worse for gaming; http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 531-4.html )

I've come across scattered articles on modifying and running server 2k8 as a vista-esque desktop OS. Essentially vista with better performance;
main guide;
http://blogs.msdn.com/vijaysk/arch [...] op-os.aspx
benchmarks;
http://wastingtimewithmikeandari.w [...] -of-vista/

Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter tool
http://www.win2008workstation.com/ [...] converter/

basic 2k8 desktop setup guides;
http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/about101245.html
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/257 [...] ista_theme
2k8 wireless and IE security settings;
http://h0bbel.p0ggel.org/windows-s [...] -laptop-os
news article;
http://www.infoworld.com/article/0 [...] 008_2.html

slashdot article;
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.p [...] 15/2325215

Has anyone had experience with doing something similar with Desktop 2008?
Please only vote if you've had at least some experience with both.

Thanks in advance for any advice and comments.

Added links to workstation-converter tool and slashdot. Still looking for Server 2k8 VS Vista SP1 benchmarks.

Limited ones here;
http://www.pcworld.com/article/142 [...] ack_1.html
(server seems to be under heavy load; took me a few attempts to grab the page)
http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2008/ [...] right.html (2k8 wins by 11-17%)

Too soon to tell. Read a big discussion of it today here http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2245

IMHO, well IMHguess actually, I doubt server will run much faster than Vista in general and I seriously doubt there will be much gaming differential. That one exo-blog seems rather shaky to me. These things take a while to nail down. Benchmarks are often inconsistent and all over the place.

Just on the subject of SP1 vs RTM the benchies were all over the place, even just testing file transfers there was no consensus - same with XP vs. Vista

They have the same kernal so it's likely to come down to what's running in the background, which you could likely tweak in Vista anyway. Server costs an arm and a leg and installing stuff to it that is meant for a desktop OS may prove difficult.

o0 ty for the link. Most of his points do seem to be cost related thought. If you happen to have MSDN access that's kind of a moot point. (As he duly notes).

My knowledge of operating systems is probably failing me here, but I can't see how if they have the same kernel you'd have problems setting up programs compared to vista. I'm still viewing the two OSes as NT4 vs 2000; pretty much the same stuff, just neater round the edges with a handful of fixes. (Gross oversimplification, but hey).

I'll try out both and post personal findings.

Server editions usually have higher security than desktop editions... so right there you have a huge pain in the @$$. It just seems like a lot of effort for little or no gain.

Vista works fine, just tweak the settings on it, get your updates and you'll be set.

Vista loses 5-10% of system resources compared to XP, and runs slower than XP on the same hardware. (This however, was true of 95->98, 98->XP, so meh).

How is extra security a bad thing?

And yes, they're both built around the NT 6.0 kernel, but Server 2008 was released over _a year later_. (Jan 30th 07 -> February 27th 08). Yes, this would be time spent improving server functions, but general performance has increased as evidenced by above links.

Plus there's a host of features some of which are still useful to the desktop user;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windo [...] 8#Features

NTFS healing and various disk management items for a start.


I'm unsure if I prefer 2008 over Ubuntu (especially Ubuntu Studio) but I certainly find it to perform better than Vista. I did spend a fair while reducing running services though.

Extra security usually isn't a bad thing... but when you have Windows constantly nagging you about installing this or that... going to certain webpages... asking you for a reason to shut down or restart... then it's a pain. Of course, I'm sure you have most of those disabled anyway.

Of course, for you the price is right. I would probably run Server myself if I could get it that cheaply. However, since it is quite cost prohibitive for me, I find that Ultimate does everything I want / need and it runs the games I play more than adequately.