Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 is the fourth Microsoft operating system dedicated to servers and workstations. Although built on the same platform (the Windows NT 6.x) with Vista, Windows Server 2008 did not draw so many critics from the community as Vista did.

This is due its clear strategy of making things easier, not more complicated. While Vista was bashed by everyone with very few users stating that they actually love the new operating system from Microsoft for desktop computers, Windows Server 2008 had both its good and bad aspects, with the good ones taking the toll on the rest.

Released and commercialized in four different editions (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter and Web ), Windows Server 2008 had its fair share of fans and was overall better received by the public than its desktop-oriented sibling. This particular operating system makes the administrator feel like an administrator and not like a guest with some powers left untouched as Vista does.

In comparison, Windows Server 2008 is better than its predecessor (Windows Server 2003) in means of a simplified system administration with better-thought views and a general upgrade on the intuitive part of the grand scheme. On the other hand, Windows Server 2008 was not the brightest OS when it comes to window drawing times at first. This and many other things forced Microsoft in launching Windows Server 2008 R2 just one year after.

Amongst the most important features that Windows Server 2008 brought to the workbench are the Server Core, Active Directory roles, Failover Clustering, Self-healing NTFS, Hyper-V, Windows System Resource Manager, Server Manager as well as other improvements.

Windows Server 2008 was a great addition to the Server line of Microsoft operating systems, a much better OS than Vista altogether. Of course, it did lack some very important aspects such as SSH as well as secure FTP support, but, in the end, it was the beginning of a new era and quite the beginning, we might add.