Channel 9 Forums - Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

smartguy — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 20:07:14 GMT

Well to start off. I hated Windows 2000 server. I paid for something i hardly everyuse. Until Windows 2003 standard came i really thought Msoft had lost its. So why was Windows 2003 Better

Stable for godsakes!
Work like i setup to
Lesser errors in Dll files "which i cofig myself"
Started a Apache server and it ran like a dream.

Now im waiting for Windows 2006 Server. Which has a code name of "Longhorn server". There is no beta out yet. So im hoping we can reach the programming to tell them what we are asking for. For starters

Irc Server
php enable on windows. "with out any extra software"
leak proof memory
More control over what goes in and out.
Mysql db control. "editors, Controls, More"

Post your idea if you like! ^will be update once i get more ideas^

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 20:23:57 GMT

What the...

So you purchased 2k server for your own personal use?! Why would you do that!

1. Windows 2k is stable, compared at least to Win98 / ME that where both out at the time.
2. This is a non-statement
3. Then maybe your configuring them incorrectly?
4. You purchased Win2k server and ran apache?!

1. Microsoft don't support IRC, and it is not popular enough to make it worth while.. if they did it would appear in exchange server, a separate package.
2. PHP, works in apache for windows and IIS already, Microsoft don't support it and are competing with their ASP.
3. Possible, with new CPU's and managed code it could happen...
4. What goes in and out of where? what?
5. MySQL is a non-Microsoft product and worse still they are competing directly against it with their SQL2k server etc... keep dreaming...

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jaz — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 21:02:38 GMT

manip pretty much summed it up

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jeremy W — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 21:11:43 GMT

I'm really unaware of any stability issues with Windows 2000... Considering we have nearl 300 servers running on it you'd think I would be. The NT4 boxes are getting old and they are all having problems, though... As is our SAN-admin server, but that's mainly because it needs some more RAM (the more users we migrate to the SAN the more resources are taken up).

While everyone's entitled to their opinion, I just don't agree that 2K is bad at all... And we haven't seen many compelling reasons to move to 2003 (we just purchased 20 licenses so we can setup a test lab and push AD/Exchange/SQL Server a little bit, so we'll see if this opinion changes).

As far as 2006, the one thing I'd love is to not have to buy SecurePath (at a cost of 5K/server) just so we can do multi-route attachments to the SAN. I'm not really sure that's a high demand area, but if Longhorn Server wants to really move into the DC and high-end corporate area this will certainly help. It would also make it the only OS out there (that I'm aware of) besides VMS that can do this.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 21:38:42 GMT

Thing is, Longhorn server has to be a REALLY strong contender. By the time it is out Linux/FreeBSD will be even better than they are at the moment, it is hard to justify buying a windows server for anything other than domains; with a double hardware cost and much higher cost in general (even compared to non-free RedHat etc).

I have nothing against samba, but managing it can be a pain.. So at the moment it is not an ideal solution but it is just getting better and better with each release and will not be too long until it is equal (or better) than Windows server.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Shining Arcanine — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 23:44:04 GMT

Last check, Microsoft decided to make Longhorn a desktop/workstation only OS. Blackcomb is going to be the next server OS. That is why Gartner recommended that companies switch to Windows 2003 Server.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 23:58:11 GMT

I am kind of mirroring what others have said, but I don't see the added value of 2003... I mean it is an improvement, but it seems they have done lots of little things but no big pull factors.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Shining Arcanine — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:18:29 GMT

Manip wrote:

I am kind of mirroring what others have said, but I don't see the added value of 2003... I mean it is an improvement, but it seems they have done lots of little things but no big pull factors.

It is up to 11 times faster than Windows 2000 depending on the circumstance and 50-100% faster than Linux. I'd call that a big factor.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:21:10 GMT

Where did those Linux numbers come from? And what service is 50-100% faster? Boot time? web-server? Playing unreal torny?

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Shining Arcanine — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:24:07 GMT

Manip wrote:

Where did those Linux numbers come from? And what service is 50-100% faster? Boot time? web-server? Playing unreal torny?

Server performance:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/7/1/0715a190-70f5-4b0d-8ced-f9d1e046aa6a/netbench.pdf

Windows 2003 Server mops the floor with Linux.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:34:00 GMT

Are you joking? I mean you link to a study on Microsoft.com! Not even mentioning Microsoft's history (particularly the incident when they showed internet explorer is faster than Netscape when Netscape is on a slower connection!). Also it is talking about file access only... AND what about Microsoft's wonderful "total ownership of windows is less than Linux.." which is just funny.. really is funny...

Not to mention this is testing Samba not linux. And even then only one feature of Samba.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Shining Arcanine — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:43:04 GMT

Manip wrote:

Are you joking? I mean you link to a study on Microsoft.com! Not even mentioning Microsoft's history (particularly the incident when they showed internet explorer is faster than Netscape when Netscape is on a slower connection!). Also it is talking about file access only... AND what about Microsoft's wonderful "total ownership of windows is less than Linux.." which is just funny.. really is funny...

Not to mention this is testing Samba not linux. And even then only one feature of Samba.

Tech support doesn't have to work as hard and anyone that pays per minute/hour will be in the poor house with Linux.

Tech Support: Now I want you to type in this 200 character line into the bash prompt.

Worker: I have no clue what you just said, what is a bash prompt and would you repeat each character extremely slowly so I make sure that I type the right one?

With Windows, everything is visual so things are streamlined and it is not a GUI on top of a command prompt.

Tech Support: I want you to click this, this and this, then check this and click the ok button 3 times.

Worker: Done, everything is working again, thankyou!

This really increases productivity which lowers the TCO.

And if you still don't believe me, thinking that Windows 2003 Server is not a significant increase in performance is your choice and I have no right to argue with you over your decision.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:45:25 GMT

I love how you back-peddle out of your entire 'windows is faster than linux, look at this' rubbish.

Also, Linux isn't a desktop system and we are not discussing desktops... You might not have a GUI but that reduces hardware costs / usage.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jeremy W — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:07:17 GMT

Are you ignoring the 2 recent non-MS TCO studies then?

I really have no desire to get into a TCO argument, but there are two things that I always, always find funny when these studies come up:

1. While a company doing it's own study does not have the appearance of partiality, that does not mean it is biased. By studying the methodologies, test subjects, etc (which Microsoft hasn't lied about, that I'm aware of, in past studies) you can easily determine how indiciative a study is (most people simply would rather say "MS did it themselves, or they paid for it so it doesn't count")

2. Where studies are done and conclusive evidence is found, they are ignored.

Personally I don't care about studies. Whenever you do a conversion project you should run your own numbers and those numbers should be one (just one) of the deciding factors.

Either way we are geting severely off track. This was a discussion about what could be done to improve Windows in the server space.

As far as Windows 2003 and performance (getting back to the subject at hand), most servers in companies our size are single-purpose, single-app servers (about 50%). We generally don't buy with power in mind.

For instance we just bought 25 Dell PowerEdge 2650's (2 x 3.0GHz Xeons with 4GB of RAM and a pair of RAID arrays (one for OS and one for data)).

None of these will ever max out their power requirements. As such, while the added speed of 2003 is good to know about it doesn't help us.

What will help us is ways to bring down the cost of SAN-attaching servers, a more streamlined way to interoperate with other tools (particularly Novell ones as they are the most mature management tools (in my opinion) outside of Microsoft) and better asset management built into the servers (ie: outside of the DSI management tools).

Disclaimer: again, we haven't even got our 2003 test lab up yet, so there could be significant improvements in these areas already.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

smartguy — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 03:01:55 GMT

Well my windows 2000 would always go to blue screen. This is the 1999 copy. I had 2000 because i own a test host. So i thought it would be nice to start with that. It was my first server. Then also i dont want apache. I use it cuz php can be unable throw that. So then it brings me around to Php. I would like php to work on Windows. Even thou its can be used throw linux. "Not a big linux fan. Its a very annoyying os. but i do use it."

"4. What goes in and out of where? what? "

What i mean by that is that i can have more control over each port. But without going throw each port. Like ports 2000-#### is close or leads to port 80.
Irc is very popular throw linux from what i know. Windows would make a better irc server. Cant say the same about http server. lol. I just leave that to linux. I use windows as my workstation.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

BOFH — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 03:09:01 GMT

:\

Is there something wrong with you, or are you just very unlucky and misled?

The only reason which 2000 would have cause to BSOD would be either:

a) Bad hardware
b) Bad software (such as Apache)
c) Bad user

As far as your point 4 goes, that's called ISA Server 2000: http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/

"Irc is very popular throw linux from what i know. Windows would make a better irc server. Cant say the same about http server. lol. I just leave that to linux. I use windows as my workstation."

Firstly, you've got it the wrong way around. Linux, at the moment, is a better platform for IRC (I should know, I run an IRC network with 3200 users on it); the reason for this is that the majority of the large IRCds (IRC Servers) available at the moment are designed primarily for Linux. Some of the more well-used ones such as Bahamut and Unreal come with Win32 ports which you can compile and run on Windows, however, the development of these Win32 ports is secondary to the main development work.

IIS, however, is a superior web server to practically everything else out there, including Apache. IIS is a commercial product, backed by one of the largest companies in the world. It is not, as Apache is, a "hobby" product written by a thousand developers who have virtually no internal communication beyond their primitive form of discussion board called a "mailing list." I hate to be so anti-Apache/Linux here, but it's one of the things which really bugs me about Linux evangelists; the persistant belief that OSS has a hope in hell of creating better products than a commercial entity like Microsoft.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

SMac — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 05:41:29 GMT

Damn.. add mod points and we'd have slashdot V2

(I know, I know, I'm a -1 flamebait)

As far as more control over ports, look into routing and remote access (Remote Access/VPN Server Role) you can see your routing table, see current active connections, change filters.. much much more..

Need more? ISA server 2000 or 2k4 beta 2 is available to MSDN subs..

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

sbc — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 08:57:27 GMT

BOFH wrote:

IIS, however, is a superior web server to practically everything else out there, including Apache. IIS is a commercial product, backed by one of the largest companies in the world. It is not, as Apache is, a "hobby" product written by a thousand developers who have virtually no internal communication beyond their primitive form of discussion board called a "mailing list." I hate to be so anti-Apache/Linux here, but it's one of the things which really bugs me about Linux evangelists; the persistant belief that OSS has a hope in hell of creating better products than a commercial entity like Microsoft.

Why does Apache have 67% market share then? Maybe it does not need commercial support, and if it did then I am sure someone provides it.
Amazon uses Apache as does PayPal and they are very successful commercial sites. Very good business case for Apache. Google runs Linux (and it's own home grown web server).
It proves that OSS can provide a better product. Why is CVS and PHP/Perl so popular as well?

What is good about Apache is the .htaccess files. They may not be user friendly but the do allow you to do things like redirection (which in IIS you need access to the server and need to create the file you are redirecting from).

Other things Apache can do (without admin rights to the server config):

Error Documents
Password Protection
Deny access (via IP)
Adding mime types
Directory index (i.e. default page in folder)
Prevent hotlinking (i.e. linking to images from other sites)
Prevent directory listing

From http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml
Apache's .htaccess file gives a lot more power to the web developer (which can be dangerous as well as extrememly beneficial if you use it properly)

There are lots of modules available for Apache to extend it.

IIS can do things like that, but only with web.config files (and even then only if the file types are .NET - ie ASPX)

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

miies — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 11:14:03 GMT

No offence to anyone in particular,

But I'm getting a bit tired of all these this vs. that topics of the last few days. Let's remember that the main focus of this site is to have discussion between MS employees and developers. If this site becomes a second /. people will certainly leave, and that would be a shame.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

sbc — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 11:42:19 GMT

Doesn't this vs that help though? You could take ideas from popular competing products and implement an improved version. You need something to compare to if you wish to improve a product. Visual Studio for example could probably be a lot better if there was a real alternative. If you only had this, then a product may never really get better.

XP and in the future Longhorn probably have got some ideas from MacOSX (which is apparently very newbie friendly - not used it though)

Because there is now credible competition, Windows should get even better (it hasn't really changed much visually since 95 - which IMHO was/is Microsoft's most successful product, completely different to Win 3.11, the big changes being 32bit support and the TCP/IP stack. NT has contributed NTFS and better security.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

chuawenching — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 11:48:24 GMT

Hope it can be powerful as freebsd

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jeremy W — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:28:16 GMT

Okay, so what would you like to see IIS have then? Simply saying "Apache's better, look at all these companies that use it" doesn't show how to make IIS better.

.htaccess. Fair enough, though I honestly find the .config files are more powerful, .htaccess does some things in a much simpler fashion.

So, beyond .htaccess, what would you improve sbc?

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

sbc — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:55:38 GMT

It would be good if you could use web.config for other files (the only way you an do that is if you associate more file types with web.config - unless you can specify redirection on an arbitrary file, like index.html without creating that file)

Also password protect any directory (at the moment if you want to protect /root/subdir/foldertoprotect/ you have to set up foldertoprotect as an application - unless there is a way, I do not know how to). The other problem I have found is if you have a dll in /bin/ that you wish to use in /root/subdir/foldertoprotect/ you need to copy it to the bin folder in foldertoprotect - you may want this as it could be a shared dll used on many 'sub applications'

e.g. I find putting the following into the web.config directory in foldertoprotect does not work

How do you use forms authentication on subfolders?

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Terry Denham — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 14:43:17 GMT

sbc,

To get this scenario to work you would have the web.config file in the root directory. Then in the subdir, if you wanted it to be restricted to certain users or roles, you would add a simplified web.config to this directory. Or you can add elements to you root web.config to restrict access to subdirectories.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;815174

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307626

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

sbc — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 14:56:16 GMT

Thanks for that. I now have a web.config that works:

















I assume with this setup you can only have one login page? i.e. you may have a folder called poweruser that is restricted to power users and admin - I assume to do this you use roles?

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 15:28:59 GMT

Why on earth has Microsoft encoded their config files in XML?!!? That is moronic, that is the only word for it! Are they just trying to make them a pain to edit! This XML trend is really getting out of hand.

[This has nothing to do with apache.. just my hatred for misuse of XLM! ]

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jeremy W — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 15:34:37 GMT

Actually it's great if you're trying to manage the config files on various machines. I love the fact that the .config files are in XML. The fact that Apache's aren't drives me up the wall.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 15:48:52 GMT

Order deny, allow
Deny from all

That is all you have to write to block access to windows with apache. No XML, nice simple... I can explain that to anyone in 1min and can write it in even less time. XML == Evil!

Before you all come back at me about how IIS can use NTFS to secure its files.. so can apache for windows and Apache for Linux if you decide to install ACL.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jeremy W — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 15:55:12 GMT

Don't worry mate, I know how .htaccess works, but try doing that across multiple servers in multiple farms in multiple countries. The XML configuration of .config files means that I can work with a parser without having to do any find / replace type stuff. It just writes the value I need to whatever server, OS, farm or regional location I require.

Easy as pie.

I'm not complaining about .htaccess, because the simplicity is a huge bonus. However, the manageability of the .config files is a huge bonus as well. It's 2 different ways of managing a server. Neither is right or wrong, but it's likely only one will suit your needs

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Todd Spatafore — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 17:15:51 GMT

Manip wrote:

Order deny, allow
Deny from all

That is all you have to write to block access to windows with apache. No XML, nice simple... I can explain that to anyone in 1min and can write it in even less time. XML == Evil!

Before you all come back at me about how IIS can use NTFS to secure its files.. so can apache for windows and Apache for Linux if you decide to install ACL.

Can you not see that what you wrote is XML?

From where I stand, XML makes it easy to configure files. I personally like it better than INI files. Besdies if the config file is in XML it's easier to write your own tools to manipulate those configurations than if it was a proprietary binary file, or a text file with no real organization. Also when migrating to a new server, you don't need to export registry settings and then import them, you just copy the XML files. Now if only IIS had an install methodology like Tomcat with its WAR files.

As for what I'd like to see in the next server version, well I like the path that 2003 took with fewer applications installed by default maybe there are more services and such that don't need to be started by default.

Also a host firewall turned on by default, or even better an initial install mode where no ports are open to incoming traffic while you patch your system. Today when you install 2000 or 2003 there are dozens of QFE's that you have to install immediately, but because of the way that some worms spread, you don't have time to download the patches before the worm hits you.

Also, I understand the need to test the Service Packs completely, but they need to happen more frequently. Or at least have rollups more often where you take all the current patches and roll them up into one 36MB download (or whatever it turns out to be). Do this once a quarter, and make these easy to slipstream into the OS install disk.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 17:26:06 GMT

TheTodd wrote:

Besdies if the config file is in XML it's easier to write your own tools to manipulate those configurations than if it was a proprietary binary file, or a text file with no real organization.

Coming from someone who has never written an single tool no doubt... Yes it is such a challenge looping down a text file and then splitting it by '='. XML is insanely complex to manipulate with tools unless your using a pre-build parser. Dumping things in binary is actually fairly straight forward as are most text formats.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jeremy W — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 17:52:56 GMT

I thikn we're really getting down to splitting hairs here. Both methods are good, just depends on your preference and how you're going to use it.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Karim — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 18:04:19 GMT

TheTodd wrote:

Manip wrote:
Order deny, allow
Deny from all

That is all you have to write to block access to windows with apache. No XML, nice simple... I can explain that to anyone in 1min and can write it in even less time. XML == Evil!

[snip]

Can you not see that what you wrote is XML?

You forgot to use the closing tag. LOL

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Todd Spatafore — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 21:03:40 GMT

Let's not start with the character assassinations. This is a friendly developer forum. The simple fact is this, I prefer XML, I know developers that use the registry for all configuration settings, and I know developers that use a SQL database for the same settings. It all depends on what your program is trying to accomplish. I don't use XML for everything, I just use it when appropriate.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Manip — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 21:07:57 GMT

I disagree with you about XML, but about the Registry and SQl I am in complete agreement. SQL is even worse than XML in my view, but XML is a more wide-spread problem.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

SMac — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 01:05:41 GMT

I'd take XML over a zazillion odd xml-like proprietary formats any day..

what's a better solution.. do tell..

Frankly, I'm beginning to think you're just against any standard that exists..

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Natty Gur — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 03:42:19 GMT

I'm taking diffrent course. As an enterprise guy how spend time creating SOS (system of system) I would like to see more enterprise abilities such as application server (that our new Java brothers got). from enterprise point of view windows server dont help me convince customers to use MS as thier core enterprise servers.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

SMac — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 05:20:46 GMT

Systems of systems are very "hot" right now -- My take -- and someone please correct me if I'm wrong -- is that my understanding is that when talking about architecting enterprise applications in .Net is that it is important to realize that IIS does fulfill the role of an application server. You can expose web services that run on IIS that utilize the .Net framework to perform your business logic.

One of the problem areas in our development in Java/J2EE is the integration of products between different vendors -- we might have an app server from Company S, IDE/Tools from Vendor B, Data tier from Company O, all running on the (corporate mandated) Company M's Operating system... and we run into trouble..

What's nice about .Net is that the the data tier, the middle tier, as well as the presentation tier (both web and winforms based) are all provided by one vendor, Company M, also builds the development environment.. and the server...

What's also really nice is that since that MS saying that they "produce and eat their own dogfood" they are spending their money to come up with good solutions to common problems -- and thankfully they release these as patterns and practices available on the MSDN website.

These patterns and practices provide some very good "blocks" which are used to architect enterprise apps -- all for free... in another world, these types of things usually are provided by (high priced) consultants or in-house development...

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

smartguy — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 06:12:24 GMT

Karim wrote:

TheTodd wrote:

Manip wrote:
Order deny, allow
Deny from all

That is all you have to write to block access to windows with apache. No XML, nice simple... I can explain that to anyone in 1min and can write it in even less time. XML == Evil!

[snip]

Can you not see that what you wrote is XML?

You forgot to use the closing tag. LOL

lol. Found this funny.
<> open close wtf
learn that in html. Didnt know it went on to xml. Learn something new everyday.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

mindragon — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 12:02:57 GMT

My top 10...

1) Make Clustering even better and less painful than it already is. I would call Windows 2003 Enterprise cluster a v0.8 technology (2000 was 0.5 and NT was 0.1). I just had to muck around with a Win2k3 cluster for two hours today (better than eight hours on Win2k but still).

2) For God's sake, turn on Video Acceleration to max. Why on earth would you default it to disabled? Nvidia MX400 has lots of nifty accelleration features that make scrolling through 50 page Clustering docs less painful.

3) Make SUS a part of the package. Turn on SUS services by default. Do a bitorrent style distribution system of updates. And for gods sake, include Office and any other desktop update into the package. Make it automatic. Oh yeah, on an automatic reboot...SAVE EVERY DOCUMENT!! The desktop should be restored exactly the way the user left it.

4) Make stupid pop up boxes go away. For instance, remote desktop connection when you select "close group" it is annoying to have to go to each one and click "OK" to "This will disconnect your session" ... duh.

5) If there are two lame Admins on Remote Desktop, and they both disconnected and the sessions are locked, there has to be an easier way for a domain admin to kill those two sessions.

6) Support the 15% of the people in the world that are left handed. End the right click left click right click nightmare somehow. This includes on the login screen (where there is only one left handed user using the entire machine) on Remote Desktop (after they type their name, you should *know* they are left handed) and on any other login screen that might be invented in the future.

7) Smart monitoring of resources. If the hard drive is getting full, zap the crud that should be zapped (temporary internet files...temp...etc) and make a centralized alerting system. Even if it's MOM-lite, build it in. If the processor or RAM is maxxing out regularly, there should be a daily status report that is sent to the admin or d/l of the box. This includes what critical events happened, what warning events happened and so on. Any Service that can be bolted into this MOM-lite system should also be able to add their reports to it (web sites, etc.)

8) Make website reporting easier. I've gone through 5 or 6 crappy website reporting software and still can't find one that does what I want. There should be included with the FrontPage extensions a website status report that discusses who visited the website, the amount of bandwidth they used and so on. There should be a parent report that describes the bandwidth, disk space usage of all the websites on the box. If the website needs to be migrated to another box on the domain, there should be an easy to use migration tool.

9) Exchange 2003 is way bulky. Slim it down. Look at www.altn.com for examples of admin friendly groupware software.

10) Make malware, spyware, virus, worms, trojans, hacks, exploits and any other crappy event easier to detect, track and eliminate. Even better -- a way to trace to the source and block them out automatically somehow.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Todd Spatafore — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 16:53:07 GMT

mindragon wrote:

3) Make SUS a part of the package. Turn on SUS services by default. Do a bitorrent style distribution system of updates. And for gods sake, include Office and any other desktop update into the package. Make it automatic. Oh yeah, on an automatic reboot...SAVE EVERY DOCUMENT!! The desktop should be restored exactly the way the user left it.

I do not think I could agree with this point more.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

warren — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 22:23:04 GMT

mindragon wrote:

My top 10...
2) For God's sake, turn on Video Acceleration to max. Why on earth would you default it to disabled? Nvidia MX400 has lots of nifty accelleration features that make scrolling through 50 page Clustering docs less painful.

Server-side video acceleration shouldn't be something you need to rely. Use your workstation for tasks that benefit from hardware acceleration.

mindragon wrote:

5) If there are two lame Admins on Remote Desktop, and they both disconnected and the sessions are locked, there has to be an easier way for a domain admin to kill those two sessions.

This is available already -- it's called Terminal Services Manager. You can use it to remotely disconnect and log out users from Remote Desktop sessions.

Also, you can reconfigure Terminal Services to end sessions after a certain amount of time; Look in Administrative Tools -> Terminal Services Configuration -> Connections -> RDP-Tcp (properties) -> Sessions tab. As suggested by the UI, you can also configure these settings on a per-user basis.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

mindragon — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 04:36:24 GMT

Warren,

In a fantasy world, everything works great. However, there are real world situations when acceleration should be left on by default. For instance, if you are in a datacenter (which is usually not where I put my workstation) and you're trying to get clustering to work again, it would be a pain in the a$$ to walk back and forth between the datacenter and the workstation just to have a better scroll rate. In any case, there is no performance hit by having it on. There is a significant performance hit by having it disabled. And it's not like anyone is using Trident or Tseng Labs cards anymore...

As far as the Terminal Services Manager, there is another great scenario where this doesn't work. Again, let's say you have a datacenter. The terminal server that is there is the only one accessible to the outside world. It's maxxed out. Now how do you kick the other two people off without having to drive 75 miles?

Just because it works great in theory, doesn't mean that it works great in the real world where business managers reign.

Mind Dragon

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

warren — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 09:45:53 GMT

mindragon wrote:

In a fantasy world, everything works great. However, there are real world situations when acceleration should be left on by default. For instance, if you are in a datacenter (which is usually not where I put my workstation) and you're trying to get clustering to work again, it would be a pain in the a$$ to walk back and forth between the datacenter and the workstation just to have a better scroll rate. In any case, there is no performance hit by having it on. There is a significant performance hit by having it disabled. And it's not like anyone is using Trident or Tseng Labs cards anymore...

The reason video acceleration is disabled, is because it exposes additional direct-hardware access code paths in video drivers, that could potentially be crashy. Most production Windows Server 2003 installations are going to be installed in "light-out" situations where the machine is not used at the local console -- think web farms here; does video acceleration really need to be enabled on these machines? Things like Audio, WIA, CD burning, etc. are also disabled by default for the same reason: less complexity = more stability.

mindragon wrote:

As far as the Terminal Services Manager, there is another great scenario where this doesn't work. Again, let's say you have a datacenter. The terminal server that is there is the only one accessible to the outside world. It's maxxed out. Now how do you kick the other two people off without having to drive 75 miles?

This is an issue of horrifically poor configuration on YOUR part, and is NOT a failing of the operating system.

First of all, Terminal Services gives you all the configuration power you need to prevent situations like the above from happening. Did you intentionally ignore this so that you could try and build an argument? Should I expect to hear you complaining soon about how IIS is "crippled" in a default install because you have to change the configuration a bit in order to get things to work?

Second, Terminal Services shouldn't be your "only way in" from the outside world. Use Remote Access (ie. a VPN or dial-up connection) for this purpose -- with a proper configuration, you will be able to access and administer any machine on your network (via Terminal Services or MMC) without having to go through Terminal Services to do so.

Third, Terminal Services Manager lets you connect to *any* machine running TS on your network. You don't need to use it locally, and indeed, the left-hand pane is automatically populated by the list of available TS machines, and you can build a list of "Favorites" as well. Use this capability in conjunction with a Remote Access connection to boot users off of a "full" machine.

Windows Server 2003 comes with a lot of good tools. Learn them, love them, and most importantly, USE them.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Jeremy W — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 13:36:19 GMT

I guess we're a touch spoiled in this, but we got sick of Terminal Services, RAS'ing in and VPN (for the various servers), not to mention IP-KVM for others.

So, we set-up a small CITRIX farm. Published all the apps we needed to the farm, and now we can do all the work we need from anywhere. No clients. No software. No connection settings.

Oh, and no driving 75 miles, thanks to all the servers being Dell and having the management apps (we can gracefully reboot, or just do a hard reboot if they're frozen).

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Hamled — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 02:28:45 GMT

I know this is a bit late but...

Apache is not just a "hobby product" with thousands of developers each working on making it their own personal application. It seems to me that BOFH is simply going based on the supposed situations of all Open Source projects. Apache does infact have an organization that funds it, can represent it legally, and provides the organization for it's development. The Apache Foundation (formerly the Apache Group) was created because apache is one of the core applications for most linux servers, and requires stability that can't be provided by an ever shifting group of developers with little organization.

That said, I don't have much to recommend for Windows Server 2006 because I'm more of a developer than an administrator, and can't afford Windows Server

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

dhavalhirdhav — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 05:00:27 GMT

well, just a my little words..

Linux server is better in performance because most of the Linux server runs on console.. just run Linux in GUI mode i.e. XWindows, and then run it as a Server and see the performance, performance will be worst then Windows Server. so what I would like to see in Windows Server is ability to run server on Console mode as well and in GUI mode as well. Windows Longhorn Command Shell is there, but its like a bash shell on XWindows, but I would like a complete console based solution, no GUI, that will be really cool for Windows Server.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

prog_dotnet — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 16:35:10 GMT

sql 2000 is delivered with books online, a huge resource for the dba.
There should be a books online look alike included with the longhorn product also..

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Shining Arcanine — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 21:59:43 GMT

Manip wrote:

I love how you back-peddle out of your entire 'windows is faster than linux, look at this' rubbish.

Also, Linux isn't a desktop system and we are not discussing desktops... You might not have a GUI but that reduces hardware costs / usage.

Actually, after a few comments, it is easy to see that you are irrational and further dialogue with you is not worth my time.

Coffeehouse - What can we ask from Windows "Longhorn Server" 2006

Hamled — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 02:39:51 GMT

dhavalhirdhav wrote:

Linux server is better in performance because most of the Linux server runs on console.. just run Linux in GUI mode i.e. XWindows, and then run it as a Server and see the performance, performance will be worst then Windows Server. so what I would like to see in Windows Server is ability to run server on Console mode as well and in GUI mode as well. Windows Longhorn Command Shell is there, but its like a bash shell on XWindows, but I would like a complete console based solution, no GUI, that will be really cool for Windows Server.

This would probably be too hard to impliment.. I don't know for sure, but I'd say the GUI is too central to the nt kernel to be eliminated.

In addition to that, it's a big jump. Moving from Console to GUI isn't nearly as hard because all you have to do is write a GUI interface and you can use the already written application. Almost all of the applications Microsoft has created for windows are GUI-based, as well as most of the applications created by third parties. In Linux, when X was implimented, no one _had_ to create a new application that had a GUI, as the console was still available, unfortunately in Windows if one were to go the other way around, almost all of the applications would have to be rewritten. If the GUI was still available to run applications that weren't ported, the benefits of having console-only would be negated.