

Windows Server 2012 features - AndrewDucker
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/10/10_best_server12/

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powertower
Hold on!

Microsoft has a Windows Server _edition_ (not to be confused with the Hyper-V
feature itself) called "Hyper-V Server 2012" that is free (runs the Core role
and is CLI only), and you can virtualize it (with itself) to as many VMs as
you'd like?

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2012/09/07/get...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2012/09/07/getting-
started-with-hyper-v-server-2012-hyperv-virtualization-itpro.aspx)

That's huge!

~~~
daigoba66
Neat, a direct competitor to the VMWare's free VShere Hypervisor.

~~~
patja
Still no PCI passthrough support though, right?

~~~
pcj
Doesn't look like it has - [http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-
US/winserverhy...](http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-
US/winserverhyperv/thread/5ca22cbe-4c75-490d-b4fd-da5225a1961c)

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UnoriginalGuy
This article reads like a Microsoft advertisement.

He does a poor job selling the new features of Server 2012, and some of the
features like Powershell 3 are available on 2008 R2, heck even Windows 7.

[http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=3459...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=34595)

~~~
joenathan
His point about Powershell was this:

"Every element of the operating system and virtually every other companion
server, such as SQL, Exchange or Lync, are completely manageable through
PowerShell. This is so ingrained that the GUIs are just buttons that call
PowerShell scripts underneath."

Which sounds exclusive to Server 2012.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
It isn't exclusive to 2012. It is exclusive to the product its self.

If the product will only run on 2012 then it is exclusive to 2012, but
otherwise it will work fine on 2008 R2.

~~~
tiernano
yea, but IIS, HyperV and any internal features to the OS (DNS Server, DHCP,
ActiveDirectory, etc) all, on 2012, have Powershell support, but not
necessarily on 2008 R2.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Right, but much of it is. Powershell has been a core part of Windows server
and its respective components for a while.

~~~
jstclair
"Windows Server 2008/R2 shipped with ~230 cmdlets. Windows Server 2012 beats
that by a factor of over 10 shipping ~ 2,430 cmdlets."

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/05/30/...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/05/30/windows-
server-2012-powershell-3-0-and-devops-part-2.aspx)

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jstclair
I thought one of the coolest feature was the ability to add and remove the
entire UI:

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/klince/archive/2012/04/02/windows...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/klince/archive/2012/04/02/windows-
server-8-switching-between-core-and-gui.aspx)

In short, the previous Standard / Core SKUs are gone, and you can switch
between them as required.

~~~
darrenkopp
Yeah, this is a nice feature that is quite useful. While you can install SQL
Server on core through powershell, it's a lot simpler to just upgrade and use
the GUI then downgrade back to core.

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jkat
Hard to take it seriously when they start off by suggesting that the web
server, by itself, makes it a good investment. I have nothing against IIS (I
think handlers written in C# is a solid feature compared to the alternatives
for other servers)...but at best IIS is as good as _many_ free alternatives.
Maybe they mean within the context of ASP.NET hosting, but they really should
make that clear (and if so, say how, exactly, it's better for ASP.NET).

~~~
powertower
Microsoft licensing costs are a rounding error compared to the cost of
employees for a business.

"Free" and "Alternative" are valid comparison terms if you are thinking of
industries such as Shared Hosting and use-cases of PHP.

There is a reason why MS makes the billions it does every year with "free
alternatives" on the market... Because they solve a lot of problems for some
people.

~~~
daigoba66
> Microsoft licensing costs are a rounding error compared to the cost of
> employees for a business.

That's not true for the product editions labeled "enterprise" or "ultimate".
Just look at SQL Server Enterprise.

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macavity23
Oddly, "Modern UI" (ie Metro) isn't in this list. Surely that's what every
server admin needs, no?

~~~
obituary_latte
Yeah, nothing beats trying to hover over a corner to get to the start menu in
the midst of a panicked admin session...

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ghurlman
The reason for not knowing the proper keyboard shortcut might also explain why
this is a "panicked" session.

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itgoon
The keyboard shortcuts don't work in a less-than-fullscreen terminal server
session. That's where a lot of my admin work happens, and having to hover over
that corner sucks.

~~~
joenathan
Keyboard shortcuts like Alt+Home(Start Screen) and Ctrl+Alt+End(=Ctrl+Alt+Del)
should still work.

~~~
OldLikeDos
That only appears to work through one level. Right now I'm remote-desktoping a
physical computer and have a Hyper-V VM open on that. Alt+Home will pass
through to the VM only if the remote-desktop session to the host is full-
screen.

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harshaw
I think the really operative phrase in this article is:

"Once you have assembled the list of scriptlets you need – printed, laminated
and guarded by a fire elemental as in days of old – you can make the 2012
stack of Microsoft software sing."

My biggest issue with using windows server 2012 is the cognitive dissonance
encountered when using the product. Are they trying to go more like unix and
use command line scripts (e.g: powershell)? It sure seems that way. However,
they also bolted on the most horrid and inappropriate UI ever onto the
product. Is there some reason a hierarchical menu system doesn't make sense
for an admin? Do they adopt a sensible convention of making all the
configuration text editable? Is built in remote command line administration
present (e.g: ssh?) It doesn't seem like it.

As a competent linux admin and novice windows server admin it seems very
confusing.

And don't get me started on hyper-V. I really tried to use and spent almost a
day of investigation. However, there really is nothing for documentation. With
ESXI you download it, install, connect vmware fusion, and start working. Done.
Couldn't figure out how to do that hyper-V.

~~~
pcj
Have you already looked at this - [http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc732470(v=ws.10)...](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc732470\(v=ws.10\).aspx)

~~~
harshaw
I think so. I do recall attempting to install the hyper-V on a server core
installation. However, I think the problem was that the management tools
required either windows server 2008 (which I didn't have) or Vista (which I
didn't have). I don't know why the management tools aren't just a win32 binary
(like VWWare Vsphere).

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MichaelGG
It seems that CSVs still require a shared storage system. The biggest thing I
miss on Windows is a DRBD equivalent. I want to take a couple servers, and
have them sync up their disks over the network - no need for a single point of
failure SAN.

~~~
jstclair
What's the scenario exactly? You can't make use of AD and DFS?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_File_System_(Micros...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_File_System_\(Microsoft\))

~~~
MichaelGG
DRBD gives me a block device that's mirrored on 2 or 3 machines. DFS is like a
file-level replication system or something. For instance, I can use DRBD as an
iSCSI target for instance and then failover SQL Server. Or I can use any other
app that requires no possibility of conflicts or uses open files.

AFAIK, Microsoft still has no solution in this case but to introduce a single
point of failure via a SAN or other shared storage. I'd love to be wrong.

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euroclydon
Does it have SSH access yet? Or, does PowerShell have an encrypted remove
protocol?

~~~
alanbyrne
Yes, remote PowerShell is basically like SSH and is based on Win-RM. It can be
encrypted with SSL.

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jakeonthemove
So, nothing new, then?

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WayneDB
I have been running Windows Server 2012 (Standard) as my main desktop for the
past couple of months and I absolutely love it... I installed it onto an IBM
x3100 M4 open box special ($400!) that I had picked up and after I added 32GB
of RAM, an nVidia Quadro 600 and 5 (JBOD-configured) hard drives to it, the
thing absolutely flies. Last night I had 2 VMs running in the background, 1 XP
the another with an install of Win7 in progress and meanwhile I was playing a
game of WoW on high-quality.

I did not replace the start menu because I like the big tiled-display. The
only thing I miss on this new start screen is Jump Lists because I do not pin
things to the task-bar (I prefer quick-launch), so Jump Lists are effectively
useless to me now. The only usability tweaks I installed are: 7 Taskbar
Tweaker and AutoHotKey. Other than that, the thing just works.

