Well, I have them both and I must say despite all the bad press I maybe able to get used to them. The joys of having access to a full Enterprise Volume License, I now have fully activated versions of both for testing.

Windows 8 with its new GUI is quiet interesting, and so far the lack of start menu is no real headache as the home screen can be fully customised. You can of course get access to a standard desktop should you choose, but of course there is no start menu. I am using Windows 8 Enterprise which is the corporate version, which seems to be the same as Pro with a few extras.

Server 2012 is different, it boots to a standard desktop. However press where the start menu normally is and you get the same metro interface as featured in Windows 8 but now we have all the server management tools listed and these all have a metro look and feel.

The backend of both has a standard control panel, system systems and all the rest of windows management tools which are just accessed in a different way.

So far so good, but I am not sure how well Windows 8 will fare in a desktop environment.

Can you force 8 to use the desktop only?

Not found a way yet. A number of third party apps are available to restore some of the start menu functionality.

I'll stick with 7 then

And businesses will stick with XP

Are they any major changes (other than UI) in server 2012? There's rumors we may be installing it on some next year, but I've only just got used to server 2008...

I guess they're probably trying to push hyper-v a bit more this time round...

There are 2 downloads for Server 2008 STD, one version that includes Hyper-V and another which does not. As a VMWare site Hyper-V has no interest for us, so I only have the normal version. Operationally it looks the same as 2008 R2, except all the tools have a metro theme. Server manager looks kind of weird. Task manager in both is really good as you can see at a glance who is doing what easily unlike the one in Windows 7 / 2008R2, and the performance tab is much easier to see whats going on.

server manager.tiff

taskman.tiff

How are they for speed?? Stripping out all the aero effects should make them faster, especially for gfx challenged computers.

W8 certainly seems nice and snappy on the machines I've used it on.

I really don't fancy trying to get users to accept the Metro start screen though, so I suspect we'll be sticking with W7 instead.

start menu bodge

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/23/classic_shell_gives_windows_8_a_start_button/

There are 2 downloads for Server 2008 STD, one version that includes Hyper-V and another which does not. As a VMWare site Hyper-V has no interest for us, so I only have the normal version. Operationally it looks the same as 2008 R2, except all the tools have a metro theme. Server manager looks kind of weird. Task manager in both is really good as you can see at a glance who is doing what easily unlike the one in Windows 7 / 2008R2, and the performance tab is much easier to see whats going on.

Server manager certainly does look a bit weird from that screenshot, but I think it's just a bit of adjusting. Most of the important things seem to be on the front screen so should speed up things a bit. The new task manager looks like it should help compared to the 2008R2 one, that one is horrible...

Thanks for the screenshots, although my company has a volume licence, it's not a full one so all I get for free is some rubbish online training for office!

I have the Enterprise Version of 8 for evalution at home and at work, Personnally, I'm not over keen on it for lots of reasons and I've been left totally disappointed by it. '7' is much better in my opinion. Also at work we have been part of the dev program (I'm not part of that). So far, they hate it at work! So much so, we are going fully Linux Ubuntu on the servers and for desktops and dumping all connections with Windows. We already have one smaller network running Linux Ubuntu at work (mine) and it's proven to be superb. We evaluated Linux against '8' and found Ubuntu better for all our needs and fully compatible with everything we do. It will also save us in the region of £90k at local level (and that's tax payers money by the way) by using Ubuntu even with paid for support, which with Ubuntu is not usually required unless you have critical systems.

Well, I have spent the afternoon playing around with the Pro version of Windows 8 RTM (Enterprise version has no media playback functionality). I have installed a shed load of software, and pointed it at my networked home server for music and photos and so far it all works. Dabbled a bit with Metro and setup the weather, news etc. so they all work. Non native Windows 8 programs create a link on metro but when you click on them they switch to desktop view to launch the application.

Spent most of my time on the desktop anyway, as there are very few apps available for the Metro interface.

I'll be doing some testing next with our core office applications, but since we already run those on Windows 7 I don't see there being any problems.

That's interesting stuff mannyo. I hate that Metro setup...but keep posting as it's interesting to hear your views on it.

Some of my admin tools are having difficulty installing due to compatibility, these same tools install fine on Windows 7.

So far, WSUS admin console and VMWare VSphere client 4.1 are failing. I really need the ESXi 5 tools as well, I also need to find a version of RSAT thats compatible with Windows 8.

Is there no compatibility mode as in win 7? A lot of the old programs we use that have to run in compatibility mode complain during the installation process.

Some of my admin tools are having difficulty installing due to compatibility, these same tools install fine on Windows 7.

So far, WSUS admin console and VMWare VSphere client 4.1 are failing. I really need the ESXi 5 tools as well, I also need to find a version of RSAT thats compatible with Windows 8.

We have had that too. Also, for some reason we cannot install some essential drivers for our motherboards in '8' that installed fine in '7'. The drivers in '8' won't run some hardware correctly we've found. Same on my system at home with the motherboard drivers that I need. They won't install or don't install properly. Still working on fixing this.

One thing I noticed, was that if you have IE running on Metro, it's completely separate from IE running on the desktop - it's a different process.

This was on the version before the RTM one.

Considering we are currently mid roll out of windows 7 across our entire pc estate.. i think we will be skipping 8 completely. I don't see any gain for the enterprise in making the switch, just an increase in call volume from confused users.

Might get 2012 installed into a VM later though and see what that's like.

The one good thing that they are doing is only charging £25 for an upgrade to W8 Professional from the previous versions back to XP Pro - a far more sensible cost and obviously driven by Apple's pricing of OSX

EDIT- Never mind, Aspman already posted it!

Edited 2 September, 201213 yr by g_tee

Not a fan of Win 8 to be honest. It doesn't bring a huge amount of fundamental functionality to the user than that of Win 7. I know it'll be easier to work with for tablet users and clearly is geared more for integrated social networking but other than that, it's not a big deal.

Being as I use neither a tablet or scoail networking apps I'll be sticking with Win 7, and I imagine most corporate users will do the same.

Playing with the RTM Pro release today - my first thoughts are Yum if using a Tablet at home - and a bit YUK if trying to use it for any serious work at work.

Not a big fan at all.

They got it right with Windows 7 and should have stuck there.

Having to load .cpl files to find my way round the settings.

Paul