For years, my main desktop has been a server operating system. My job involves me working with server operating systems, not client. When Microsoft decided to get rid of the start button. I had to refer back to my Windows 3.11 days and Program groups, no start button there. Since then, every other version has included the start button. I’ll admit, of all of the little things, this turned me off in the beginning. For years and many versions, Microsoft gave users a gazillion different options to customize about every other option available. Not anymore. Do I thank Apple for this?!
With the invention of Windows 8/ 2012, the start button is gone. It’s been an adjustment I’ll admit having the UI on a server OS, I’d prefer not having a touch based UI on a server, it’s unnecessary and especially if you RDP into the server, RDP isn’t touch enabled. I got over this phobia, but was an adjustment. I’ve adjusted after a few days getting all my programs pinned to the task bar, so I don’t have to view the tiles much. I installed the following apps with no issues. One thing I can’t find or haven’t look to hard is the snipping tool. I’m sure it’s there, but I haven’t found it yet.
- FileZilla (I used FTP/S occasionally to servers on the web)
- Windows Live Writer (blog writing software Make sure to get Essentials 2012, not 2011)
- SQL Server 2012
- Hyper-V
- IIS 8
- Office 2010
- Visual Studio 2010 w/sp1 (haven’t gotten the urge to switch to VS 2012 yet)
- Orchestrator 2012
I ran into an interesting thing when trying to load my first VM that was also Windows Server 2012. When it was first booting up, I would get this white dialog box, and a outline of a button, no text would display and windows would get stuck stating “Setup is starting”. After a while, nothing would happen, I would click the outline of the button and would stick on this saying. The fix appears to be I didn’t allocate enough initial memory (or the minimum required). It would have been nice to know that without guessing.
Anyway, I’m still getting used to the new setup, but adjusting. I have to give Microsoft credit on one hand to going a different direction than the industry, I just hope the new path doesn’t lead them to driving off the cliff. Windows Server 2012 is definitely worth checking out, there is a lot to learn. I thought I’d pass along my initial thoughts on my OS upgrade (aka my desktop), which is a HP PC with 6 GB of RAM, i3 (4 core) and 500 GB drive.
Hope this helps, anything else I find I’ll pass along.
Cheers,
Steve Schofield
Microsoft MVP – ASP.NET/IIS
http://www.iislogs.com/steveschofield