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- Windows "Workstation" 2008 results lead to backlash from Vista zealots
- Windows "Workstation" 2008: One week later
- Windows "Workstation" 2008 Clobbers Vista in Benchmark Testing
- Microsoft owns up to Vista's flaws (sort of)
March 10, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Windows "Workstation" 2008: One week later
It's been just over a week since I took the plunge and nuked my Vista SP1 installation in favor of a desktop implementation of Windows Server 2008 (aka Windows "Workstation" 2008). So far, it's been a smooth ride. All of my core applications are working flawlessly, including SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2008 and Office 2007. In fact, outside of the multimedia issues I mentioned in my previous entry, I'd be hard pressed to find fault with the experience.
Some observations:
- Visual Studio 2008 flies on "Workstation" 2008. This is no joke. I was ready to throw in the towel on Studio 2008 under Vista. Now, time-consuming operations -- like selecting a complex ASP.Net object on a heavily populated Web form -- that would bog down under Vista just snap right along under 2008. The IDE loads faster, as do my projects. As far as Studio 2008 is concerned, "Workstation" 2008 has delivered an all-around speed boost and has proven to be a real productivity enhancer.
- VMware Workstation also runs better on 2008. I'm a big VM user because I need to test my code against so many different OS permutations. With "Workstation" 2008, juggling even large, multi-gigabyte VMs is a breeze. You immediately sense the performance improvement as even hard-to-virtualize OSes, like Vista x64, run more smoothly. It's made the process of testing my latest revisions that much more pleasant.
- The OS never feels "sluggish." Under Vista, you inevitably reach a point where the OS starts to "slow down." It may be after a day of heavy use or even a week of on-again/off-again (or in the case of my Dell XPS M1710 "notebrick," suspend-again) computing. But eventually you'll feel the need to reboot and start clean. With "Workstation" 2008, I've yet to encounter such a malaise. Whether it's better memory management or simply a more mature, polished code base, "Workstation" 2008 delivers a level of robustness and consistency that Vista can't touch.
Of course, the really bizarre aspect to my "Workstation" 2008 experience is that, from a technical standpoint, it doesn't make sense - or at least, it shouldn't. With the same kernel (as of Vista SP1), the OSes should in fact behave similarly.
To be sure, the Windows Server 2008 kernel is configured differently at boot-up. Different switches are applied to tune the kernel for server duty. In fact, this was the norm with all "NT" client and server releases prior to Windows XP: A shared code base differentiated primarily by boot-time tuning of the kernel image. However, it's hard to fathom how tuning alone could cause what is essentially the same OS to behave so differently in identical workload scenarios.
Something else is going on here - or perhaps isn't going on. Some of my "Workstation" 2008 compatriots have speculated that DRM is to blame, that Windows Server 2008 boots with less of the DRM plumbing than the consumer-oriented Vista and that this, in turn, frees up cycles for more important tasks (like the applications you're running to actually get some work done).
Whatever the cause, I will continue to dig into the differences between the Vista and "Workstation" 2008 runtime environments. In particular, I'll be looking for evidence of OS layers that might be missing from the overall "Workstation" 2008 stack, layers that might be the source of the up to 17 percent performance hit that tests show Vista's particular flavor of the "NT 6.0.6001" kernel introduces.
I'd also like to hear what other users are finding as they experiment with Windows "Workstation" 2008. Let's get the dialog going and see if the initial hype stands up to some old fashioned scrutiny. Fire away!
Posted by Randall Kennedy on March 10, 2008 12:21 PM
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For many years, we have had our developers working on Windows Server 2003. The theory is that we can develop a better product if our developers use the same OS that our customers will likely use. In addition to all the development tools, they can run iTunes and all their favorite software.
Posted by: SplendidCRM at March 11, 2008 10:25 AMI've been on this path since last week and it's given a whole new lease of life to my Dell M90 laptop.
I have found some applications that do not properly unless you are genuinely logged in as Administrator. A user account in the Administrators group just isn't good enough at times with some old application installers.
Everything I have tried has installed to one degree or another except for a couple of applications - step forward Microsoft MSN Messenger. Yup, despite Microsoft adding a link in the Start Menu for where to go to install it, this little harlot refuses to install.
The other is the Microsoft XPS document viewer which tells me to configure .NET 3.0 via the role management - I can get as far as the role manager, but then I'm clueless what I need to do with .NET.
My compiles run faster and everything is just so responsive. Even when I switch users to do something under the Admin account. Video playback and conversion leave Vista SP1 standing.
Sadly my laptop is too old to support hypervisor, though I have tested it on another box. What I want for my next laptop is to run Server 2008 in 64-bit mode and to have more than 4GB.
Just that little niggle, I wish Microsoft would make the Vista games pack portable and available.
Posted by: Mark S. Edwards at March 11, 2008 10:57 AMWindows "Workstation" 2008 is a bit pricey as a Vista replacement. Yet I was curious about an even more expensive option -- using the Enterprise Edition of Server 2008 as a workstation. The reason being that the Enterprise Edition supports PAE and 64 gigs of RAM in 32-bit mode. Put in 8+ gigs and configure its settings for workstation usage, and we could call this "Windows Workstation 2008 Extreme". I wonder how this would do in his benchmarks?!!
Posted by: Paul at March 11, 2008 11:05 AMI just learned that my company is considering skipping Vista completely, and migrating the desktops and laptops to a Linux OS. Personally I would be happy with that move, since Vista is an ugly beast (my personal opinion).
Posted by: John at March 11, 2008 11:46 PMIm sold also. Just installed WS2008 on a DV9000 HP laptop(7200 dual core). Runs phenominal. Little bit of a driver fight for multimedia hardware but was able to get it all working.
It even boots faster and shuts down faster than XP...
Posted by: James at March 12, 2008 07:22 AMI installed Windows 2008 with DeskTop Experience.
Could not find "Remove Prior Windows Installation" in Disk Cleanup.
Deleted Windows.old with disastorous results. I have had to reinstall Windows 2008 Server .... and reinstall all the programs.
Posted by: Trader_in_Paradise at March 12, 2008 02:43 PMA couple of thoughts occur to me:
How could a 17% measured performance difference cause the qualititative change you report? After all, you use as an example VS2008 and say you were ready to throw in the towel, versus now it has snap. That doesn't sound like something achievable with a mere 17% difference.
What would be the performance difference between XP SP2 and WS2008? That would, I suggest, be the most common upgrade path. Most clients will be comparing their old OS with their new OS. If WS2008 is slower than XP SP2, then the fact that WS2008 is faster than Vista won't matter one bit to clients not following that upgrade path.
@Trader_in_Paradise
Hey
that wont gonna happened the cos next os is always come with more options and new abilities
Mark S. :
don't believe it's included. try installing this version of .net
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=333325FD-AE52-4E35-B531-508D977D32A6&displaylang=en
You were talking about the speed of 2008 and that there may be a few different configurations to the kernal at boot-up to give it the performance boost.
I've read about some of the differences in MSDN, while looking up documentation for C#. I believe that threading and networking is beefed up (like the amount of clients that can connect and the amount and method of handling threads).
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