Are Windows servers OS's?

[David444]

Hello. I am very curious about something. I know the OS's xp, vista, 7 etc. But what are the servers? like 2003, 2008, etc. Are they something tied to an OS, or individual OS's themselves?

 

[Murissokah]

They are OS's.

To be exact, they are OS'es tailored for servers, meaning by default they don't have many of the user-oriented windows features (themes, mail, multimedia) present or enabled, and on the other hand have lots of server features (we call them server roles) that can be enabled or disabled at setup, or a later moment.

Examples of server roles are: web server, active directory server, file storage, virtualization hypervisor, and many more, that usually make no sense in an user-oriented OS.

The many versions of Windows Server Operating Systems are designed in parallel with the user oriented counterparts, so Windows Server 2012 would be a server-oriented Windows 8, as Windows Server 2008 was to Vista (and 7, later on).

 

[Marklamarkle]

Windows servers are not operating systems that you can use to run your computer. They are specifically designed to be installed on servers so that they can run one program and connect it to a network. If you are looking to install an OS you could actually use, buy the non server versions. So yes, they are versions of an OS, but not for the average consumer.

 

[danny2000]

You can install Windows 2012 Server o/s onto your computer if you wanted to (if you bought it of course, but it is expensive)
Think of it as a sort of master controller of the other computers on your network.

 

[Murissokah]

Windows servers are not operating systems that you can use to run your computer. They are specifically designed to be installed on servers so that they can run one program and connect it to a network. If you are looking to install an OS you could actually use, buy the non server versions. So yes, they are versions of an OS, but not for the average consumer.

Now this is not exactly right. Windows Server will work in practically any hardware the user version will work on. The difference is that, since it is a server-oriented operating system, many features needed for an end user will be missing, while lots of useless stuff will be present. You definitely don't want to run windows server on your all-around home desktop, but stating that you can't use it to run your computer, or that they "run one program" is not quite right. You can actually do a lot more on a server, just not what you'd want to do on a workstation.

With enough fiddling, you could probably make a server version almost the same as an user version, it is just that there is no good reason to go through all that work and spend a lot more to get to the same place.

 

[Pinhedd]

Hello. I am very curious about something. I know the OS's xp, vista, 7 etc. But what are the servers? like 2003, 2008, etc. Are they something tied to an OS, or individual OS's themselves?

They most certainly are full fledged operating systems. The core system codebase is identical between the server versions and desktop versions for each iteration of Windows. I'll list the various versions below

NT 5.0 = Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server (and variants)

NT 5.1 = Windows XP (32 bit editions only), Windows Server 2003 (all editions)

NT 5.2 = Windows XP x64 edition (64 bit edition only), Windows Server 2003 R2 (all editions), Windows Home Server

NT 6.0 = Windows Vista (all editions), Windows Server 2008 (all editions)

NT 6.1 = Windows 7 (all editions), Windows Server 2008 R2 (all editions)

NT 6.2 = Windows 8 (all editions), Windows Server 2012 (all editions)

NT 6.3 = Windows 8.1 (all editions), Windows Server 2012 R2 (all editions)

Although the codebase is identical, the default configuration differs. Server variants are optimized for services, while client variants are optimized for applications. This is easily changed though.

It is possible to take a Window Server operating system and apply a converter to turn it into a highly usable Workstation operating system. I used Windows Server 2008 R2 as my desktop operating system for several years.

There are no software compatibility issues, but there may be some software configuration issues. Some DLLs that are normally included may be omitted by default (they can be installed), the default security policy is quite restrictive and can interfere with some applications, and many consumer products such as firewalls and antivirus software refuse to install on server operating systems for marketing reasons (the developers want to sell much more expensive enterprise licences for use on server operating systems).

EDIT: to see what's involved in converting a Server OS into a functioning Workstation OS, see this http://www.win2012workstation.com/