Windows server 2003 > windows XP?

ruiner_066

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Joined
11 Mar 2003
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77
Hello
A friend of mine has been telling me that he's been playing with windows server 2003 & that from his experience its much faster & leaves out a lot of the anoying crap that win xp has. If this is true (I have learned to triple check anything my friend says) I might switch to win server 2003 for my laptop. I am also really into cuustomization stuff. So my quistion is 1) Is it actually faster than XP? and 2) Do all of the tricks/tweaks/tips discussed here on OSNN also apply to windows server 2003? Would I have any trouble running any software, etc? thanks in advance.
 
Trust me, you do not want to load Server 2003 on your laptop. Just use XP Pro or, if you really want to leave out the whiz-bang stuff, use Win 2000 Pro. In my opinion, it was rock solid and very stable.
 
How are you going to "switch" to Server 2003? You have to buy the OS, and it's not cheap. If your friend is playing with the OS, then my impression is that he didn't buy it. It's not likely that anyone here will recommend you spend that much money just to get rid of the "annoying crap," and nobody will encourage you to get it for free, either.

Instead, why don't you address your complaints with XP itself, and perhaps what you hope to get rid of by switching to Server 2003. Without knowing what you want to leave behind, it would be difficult to say those things would change with Server anyway.
 
fimchick said:
Trust me, you do not want to load Server 2003 on your laptop. Just use XP Pro or, if you really want to leave out the whiz-bang stuff, use Win 2000 Pro. In my opinion, it was rock solid and very stable.

Windows 2000 is a very stable and straightforward OS, but I don't know that I'd recommend it for a laptop user. I say this mainly because I assume wireless connectivity is important for a laptop user, and XP (SP2 especially) handles wireless networking quite well.
 
I see your point about buying/stealing it muzikool, but I can actually get it for free through my school as part of some educational software program they've got. This is how my friend got it as well. So the cost, or whatever is not really an issue. I just wanted to get some opinions about the os.
 
I was able to get XP Pro and Office 2003 for $10 each through my university, but I wasn't aware that Microsoft offered similar deals on Server. If that is the case then I guess there's no reason not to consider it. The hardware requirements for the Standard Edition are very low, and there is no doubt that your laptop exceeds those. So there's not much question as to whether you can install it and run it. Still, I'm interested in knowing what specific things about XP irritate you. I can't really say that Server would be more satisfying for you without knowing what it is that you want to be different.
 
There is nothing at all that bothers me about XP; I just thought that maybe Server would suit my purpose more if it is faster. Can you tell me if XP tweaks, etc work for server?
 
basically, going from xp to server 2003 does these things:

- turns off all visual styles/animation etc (system properties/advanced/visuals)
- sets priority to background services rather than apps (same place)
- set my computer to 'explore' rather than 'open' folders
- gets rid of the common tasks
- disables audio (has to be re-enabled)
- disables 2d/3d-acceleration (has to be re-enabled)
- disables cd-burning (has to be re-enabled)
- disables wireless (i think)
- introduces a host of server-friendly tweaks (annoying on normal pcs but turn-offable)
- enviable (imho) silver/grey colour

it boots extremely fast, but once you re-enable all the things it disables by default it goes back to xp speed pretty much. still, perhaps its worth a try if you get it (legit) for free. just be aware on laptops especially it needs a bit of work to use as a workstaiton.
 
...leaves out a lot of the anoying crap that win xp has...

This is why I got the idea that there are things about XP that bother you.

Aside from that, being more specific would still be helpful. What tweaks? Are you wanting to mod the GUI... use 3rd-party tweaking apps... apply registry tweaks? I can't just answer your question with a general "yes" or "no."

As for speed, I doubt that you'll notice any significant improvement in speed based on using Server 2003 alone. Having a fresh install of Server or XP will make everything run faster, but the fact is that more processes will be running by default in Server. You will have all kinds of services running that you'll want to disable. Tweaking your OS can eat up RAM and processor, depending on how you go about tweaking, so that would apply just the same to Server as well.
 
champ2005 said:
basically, going from xp to server 2003 does these things:

- turns off all visual styles/animation etc (system properties/advanced/visuals)
- sets priority to background services rather than apps (same place)
- set my computer to 'explore' rather than 'open' folders
- gets rid of the common tasks
- disables audio (has to be re-enabled)
- disables 2d/3d-acceleration (has to be re-enabled)
- disables cd-burning (has to be re-enabled)
- disables wireless (i think)
- introduces a host of server-friendly tweaks (annoying on normal pcs but turn-offable)
- enviable (imho) silver/grey colour

it boots extremely fast, but once you re-enable all the things it disables by default it goes back to xp speed pretty much. still, perhaps its worth a try if you get it (legit) for free. just be aware on laptops especially it needs a bit of work to use as a workstaiton.

thanks a lot, that's exactly what i wanted =)
 
You can get server 2003 on a free 180 day trial from MS. It worked brilliantly on my machine and I rate it as about 30% faster than XP Home, no problems with private networks and more stable than XP home, that is until the day before yesterday when I downloaded service pack one. Wallop the whole shebang went tit’s up and not only that it affected XP as well (installed on same machine but different hard drives).

XP home is now issuing NET 1.1 bad image errors, side-by-side errors and its all over the place, all the network cards had to be re-configured, what a mess, still can’t get Server 2003 working and it thinks service pack one is installed but it’s not as if failed after about ten seconds. Any attempt to uninstall hangs the machine. Lovely.

:) :) :)
 

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