As expected, yesterday Microsoft announced that the company is renaming its .NET Enterprise Servers to the Windows Server System, in keeping with previously announced plans to drop the .NET moniker from most of its product names. Additionally, the released the adminpak, which allows administrators to install the Windows Server 2003 management tools onto a Windows XP Pro or Windows Server 2003 family machines to perform remote server management functions.
Microsoft Christens Windows Server System
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Eugenia Loli
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The AdminPak is really cool, it can really transform your WinXP PRO (I don’t think it works with HOME) into an easily admined server OS. While XP PRO does not have some advancements or even packages that Windows Server 2003 has, if you download some other components or decide to install from the XP PRO CD some additional services, you can have a pretty good server system..
Screenshot here of the adminpak’s apps:
http://img.osnews.com/img/3300/adminkit.jpg
(I don’t have the web server installed on my XP PRO btw, so I guess this is why a tool for it was not installed with the adminkit)
“if you download some other components or decide to install from the XP PRO CD some additional services, you can have a pretty good server system.. ”
I guess you could do that. But only if you don’t mind having a server that can only handle 10 connections.
I guess you could do that. But only if you don’t mind having a server that can only handle 10 connections.
What connections are you referring to?
I know that XP HOME has this limitation by default, but is XP PRO the same? I never tried it, as I haven’t installed IIS on this XP PRO installation. AT&T does not allow its costumers to run a web server, so I never bothered with either Apache or IIS since we moved to this house and got AT&T as our internet service provider… Didn’t have the need so far either… But it is still cool to have all these tools handy.
Im glad to see Microsoft doing so well and it warms my heart. Many of its users know it is the best platform in the world and it is an extreme pleasure to use a awesome, out of this world industry supported OS. Im looking forward to Windows Server 2003
It’s my opinion that Microsofts Marketing Department has caused them more problems than their actual product. They have a habit of promising the world, which is obvious fallacy. People have a bad taste about msft software because it cannot live up to what msft marketing has indicated it would.
That, and this whole .net thing. I live in the Pac NW, and was at a dinner with two msft guys one night. They were talking to each other, and one posed the question “what does .net mean to you?”. Internally, they hadn’t even explained its purpose adequately. Then they proceeded to stick the label on everything in sight, which only muddied the, er, mud.
Having said all of the above – it seems weird to me that the first holdback of the .net name is on a server product. It almost seems to me (it can’t be true) that they are indicating other server software besides their own .net variants can run on the new os – names such as oracle, db2, etc. come to mind.
Re the 10 connection limitation – that was true on NT Workstation, and I assume the non-server versions of 2000/XP as well – though I do not know that as a fact. I always thought it was a licensing issue, and not a real technical limitation. There was a program at one time that would mod the registry of an Workstation NT 4.0 machine so that it believed itself to be, and behaved as, an NT Server.
“…but is XP PRO the same?”
Yes. Windows NT 4 WOrkstation, Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional have all had this limitation when running IIS. It is due to the fact that these OSes are not intended to be used as web servers and any ability for IIS to work on these OSes is due to their use in development. It’s annoying but that’s the way it is. I’m thinking about getting a copy of Windows 2003 Web Edition to get around the limitation.
I think that’s really funny overall since the only difference between NT4 workstation and server were 2 registry keys. I bet W2K was the same way.
Yes, all the Windows OSes now share the same code base and they are beginning to build on each other. Longhorn will be an exception as MS is going to try to reinvent the computing industry with the release of that OS.
Note, you can still run servers even if your ISP doesn’t necessarily “like it.” For example, with Cox High Speed Internet, I just run Apache on port 81. 🙂
I always thought that this limitation was enforced by IIS, and not the OS it self. If I run Apache, won’t I be able to have more than 10 connections (assuming the ISP allows it
?
Windows Server 2003 is a different story as the two are different in many respects, hence, the seperate service packs.
As for Longhorn, it isn’t a reinvention, just a continuationo of the NT line with more emphasis put on .net for use as a general API for developing applications.
You’re not tired of using an os which doesn’t let you use your computer as you should be able to ? You don’t think there is somthing wrong ?
Use Gnu/Linux …
Wee Jin Goh,
“I always thought that this limitation was enforced by IIS, and not the OS it self.”
You are correct, I should have said IIS.
Matthew Gardiner,
“As for Longhorn, it isn’t a reinvention, just a continuationo of the NT line with more emphasis put on .net for use as a general API for developing applications.”
Longhorn is a ground up rewrite of most of Windows. The alpha relies on some current NT components but the end result will be mostly, if not completely, rewritten. You are correct that it will rely hevaily on .Net but your description is more of Windows 2003 Server and not Longhorn.
sx,
I can do everythign I want to on Window. Perhaps I can’t do everythign YOU want to do on Windows but then again, I can’t do what I want to on Linux anyway so it really doesn’t matter.
So if you really wanted to, you could use WinXP as a web server. I’ve never used IIS anyway, as I can’t afford it.
“You’re not tired of using an os which doesn’t let you use your computer as you should be able to ? You don’t think there is somthing wrong ?”
80% of the time, Linux doesn’t let me do the things I want to do.
“Use Gnu/Linux …”
Nope, I just use Linux thank you. My distro just happens to include some GNU stuff.
“So if you really wanted to, you could use WinXP as a web server. I’ve never used IIS anyway, as I can’t afford it.”
IIS is on the WindowsXP Pro CD-ROM. I believe it’s also availabel for download from Microsoft. Either way, it’s free. The expensive part is the OS but Windows 2003 Web Edition is going to be reasonably priced.