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Windows Server

Windows Server

Overview

Recent Reviews

Windows Server

9 out of 10
June 04, 2021
Incentivized
Windows Server is used in our Information Technology department and most of our applications hosted on it. Our databases are also deployed …
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Windows Server Review

9 out of 10
May 20, 2021
Incentivized
The most basic feature in Windows Server is obviously the Active Directory. This is basically a central place where you create, update, …
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Windows Server Review

9 out of 10
May 19, 2021
Incentivized
We leverage Windows Server as the primary backbone for most of of the applications that the University runs. This includes deployments in …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Product Demos

MIME type : How to add or configure in IIS 8 on Windows Server 2012

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Windows Server 2022 Demo!

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Multipoint Server 2012 Virtual Desktops demo

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How to Install and Configure VPN On Windows Server 2012 Full Step by Step

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Windows Server best practice you’ll want to implement today

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Product Details

What is Windows Server?

Windows Server Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(830)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-5 of 5)
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Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • File support
  • Remote access
  • Whole organization
  • Support from Microsoft
  • Not able to use
  • User interface.
  • [In my experience,] not user friendly.
  • Actual support from Microsoft, as [I feel] they are terrible for customer support.
Suited for people extremely versed in Server. [In my experience,] not suited for anyone that isn't already versed in Server.
  • File control
  • Remote access
  • [In my experience,] wasted time & money.
5
Office management
1
IT
  • File control
  • Remote access
  • Organization
  • 0
  • File organization
  • Remote access
[In my experience,] Microsoft offers no support for their products.
Yes
Standard file transfer
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Was wrong in my assumption and from the description of the product.
I would not purchase.
  • Implemented in-house
No
  • Installation
  • Interface
  • Support
[I believe it was] not as advertised.
[In my experience,] Microsoft offers little to no support in the initial stages after purchasing Server 2022. Called, told to fill out a support request. Did that. Support called, had to transfer to [the] business department. Business dept. told me to contact another dept. (forgot name). Told them all that has happened [and] I got thrown into a transfer loop. [I feel that they] didn't care a single bit. [In my experience they] kept re-reading [their] script.
No, I already spent $650 for the Server 2022 program and needed help switching from COR to GUI.
No
No.
Must be expert for Core.
  • [In my experience,] none.
  • Core
No
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Windows Server for our primary server operating system. It's primary used for our hypervisor as well as VM's. We use various Windows Server roles and functions such as AD, DNS, DHCP, file server, printing, web, and more. This allows us to have an easy to manage operating system that is centrally managed.
  • Hypervisor
  • Active Directory
  • DHCP
  • Ease of Deployment
  • Security Updates
  • Lengthy update times
  • DoH DNS Forwarders
  • More thorough update vetting
If you're a Windows shop, or heavily use O365 and Office, Windows Server fits in nicely with its ability to manage Windows clients using Active Directory. Likewise, Active Directory and Exchange integrate well with O365. If you are primarily a Mac client enterprise, Windows Server is less appropriate. Using Windows Server as a hypervisor, regardless of workstation OS, is also a great use case.
  • Security
  • Reliability
  • Longevity / Long End of Support Cycle
  • Hypervisor
  • AD DS
  • Ease of deploying new servers
  • Easy management of Windows workstations
  • Painless hypervisor cluster failover
We were comparing Windows Server with Hyper-V to VMware ESXi, and decided on Windows Server as we are primarily a Windows server/workstation shop, and the familiarity allowed us to spin up new Hyper-V servers quickly without much additional training required. We also have a Microsoft agreement and this allowed us to set up new hypervisors without needing to make additional purchasing of a different product.
750
Primarily users use Windows Server due to their workstations being bound to Active Directory, use Windows DNS and DHCP, and security policies through GPOs. The majority of our users also use it for Windows file sharing for network shares and home directories. We have a smaller subset of users that use Windows Remote Desktop Gateway for various accounting platforms.
1
I am the sole systems administrator for our organization. We have additional technicians who use their technical skills and knowledge of Active Directory, DNS, and DHCP to do occasional AD DS work like resetting passwords. For me, I have a thorough understanding of systems administration, multiple roles and features, and networking knowledge.
  • Workstation Management
  • DHCP
  • DNS
  • NPS
  • File deduplication
  • Powershell Commands
  • Improved NPS Customization
  • Remote Desktop Gateway for future applications
  • VPN Server
Windows Server is unbeatable in the features it offers, the ease of deploying new roles and features, and the seamless integration between multiple servers and their roles and features. We primarily use Windows workstations which work best with Windows Server for management as well.
No
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Product features was the most important factor for us. We are a small IT department with a lot of devices and end users, and need a server OS platform that is robust, reliable, secure, and easy to manage. Windows Servers offers a platform for all of our server needs.
While we would look more closely at Linux OS's, I don't see ourselves seriously considering any other platform or vendor for our server operating systems other than a select few use cases. Windows Server has worked very well for us, and many of our evaluation criteria's were only matched by Windows Server.
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
I learned that a slow migration is better than trying to rush and get everything migrated all in one go. Many factors took significantly longer than anticipated, included the amount of time it takes to install the latest updates, how long it takes to install certain roles and features, and when something doesn't work it often led to us having to start from scratch.
  • Long update process
  • Long role and feature install time
  • Inability to quickly revert after installing a role
Make sure that you have detailed processes in place for every server instance you plan to install/upgrade, if possible get the base OS loaded and Windows Updates applied ahead of time, and if using a VM take a snapshot prior to installing each role, as well as along the way.
  • no training
Windows Server was relatively easy to learn and use without official training. Microsoft has a vast expanse of tech articles and guides, along with thousands of other websites and blogs documenting how processes are done. Using both these resources, I was able to learn and implement everything I needed to.
I believe the configurability for Windows Server is just right. Windows Server offers a vast array of configuration options for most roles and features, and has a very robust PowerShell/CLI library to do almost anything you could need. For more advanced enterprises, there may be some limiting factors that other platforms offer, but that is not the case in our organization.
Review Microsoft's security and best practices guides and articles before configuring roles and features for Windows Server. Make sure you're reading up to date guides, as these change frequently.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
We have not done any additional customization or configuration.
Microsoft has poor support when you need something that can't be found online. For most issues, their knowledge base, tech net forum, etc. offer solutions to most problems. However if you have a specific situation that needs tech support, getting a hold of a knowledgeable rep is very difficult.
We did not, as the price was too expensive for our historical needs for premium support. We can typically get our issues resolved using Microsoft knowledge base articles and Tech Net forum posts.
No
This has not happened for us.
Microsoft does a great job at making their interface, roles, and features very use friendly. They have guides as you're setting up new roles, as well as when you are trying to configure roles for the first time. The interface is very intuitive and very little needs to be done via command line or other hidden means of configuration.
  • DHCP
  • DNS
  • Active Directory
  • AD FS
  • NPS
  • DFS-R / DFS-N
  • Group Policy
No
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Both Windows and Linux were used by the organization. Windows for most end users and many of the servers but Linux was used for many of the web servers and when Oracle was being used.
  • Ease of installation because it's easy to script/automate.
  • It's familiar/recognizable to many people because it's familiar to anyone who uses an end-user version of Windows on their personal machine.
  • It's the only OS that SQL Server runs on so it's extremely important to me because I'm a SQL Server DBA.
  • I really don't know because it does everything I've ever needed and I have no experience with other OSes.
Specifically, if you want to use Microsoft SQL Server, and I do, you must install it on Windows Server. Well, you can also install some editions on the end-user versions of Windows, but I wouldn't recommend that for production systems.
  • I used SQL Server and there's no choice. If you want to run SQL Server, you have to install Windows Server, end of story.
The only other server level OS I've ever used was OS/2, and there's really no point in trying to compare against it anymore.
Global IT and application development teams
5
Extremely technical and self-motivated so they can keep up on the latest information.
  • SQL Servers
  • SharePoint Servers
  • Application Servers
Because I'm a SQL Server DBA and SQL Server only runs on Windows Server.
No
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
SQL Server only runs on Windows Server and SQL Server was required so Windows Server was required.
Until/unless Microsoft supports some other operating system with SQL Server, there's no chance of me choosing a different OS.
  • Implemented in-house
No
  • I'm not aware of any issues at all, keeping in mind that it was implemented before I joined the company and there is a dedicated Windows OS team at the company.
Nope, wasn't around for the first installations.
Yes
If our servers go down they can have a severe impact on our business so we need really good support immediately.
Because I haven't used Windows Support personally so can only pass along what I've heard. I haven't heard anything bad, but nothing tremendously good either.
No
  • Installation of SQL Server is easy and that's really all I'm concerned about.
  • I did find it relatively easy to install and configure Hyper-V as well. In fact, easy enough that I set up a failover cluster in Hyper-V on my home machine.
  • It can be a bit tricky to set up a domain, but there are numerous resources available online to guide you through it.
It's relatively easy to do anything I've ever tried to accomplish in Windows.
December 18, 2014

WIndows Server 2012

Kettric Midura | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Windows Server 2012 is the backbone of the organization, as well as the premier platform for your clients to attain. It has come a long way, and the features and functions of 2012 far exceed previous versions of 2012. Especially with the focus being on disaster recovery and virtualization, Windows Server 2012 is a welcome addition that makes supporting client faster and easier than ever, even in a challenging security or regulatory governed network. Windows 2012 has many features to reduce the attack surface of the platform, and ultimately improve both reliability and stability for a great user experience.
  • Easily remove the GUI from the system, reducing the size of the drive needed, and reducing the attach surface malicious users my be trying to exploit.
  • Quickly manage every server in your environment from a secured workstation or network with the replacement of RSAT tools for Windows 8
  • Reconfigure your server infrastructure from any single system. Gone are the days of having to log in and out of each server independently. Logically group servers into batches and deploy the features you need quickly without waiting for them to complete before moving onto your next tasks.
  • Vastly improved RDS services that are valid competitors to Citrix. Especially for the Printer centric environments.
  • Powershell seems to be a limitation, not from its functionality, but from peoples understanding of it, and their willingness to invest the time and energy learning a new command line. From my experience, it is well worth the time and effort to understand, and the rewards far out weigh the time investment needed.
  • Easy to understand pricing models. Seems every time there is a new product, there is a new pricing tree and exceptions / exclusions that come out of the wood work. It is sometimes difficult to understand without an Microsoft rep on the line with you every time you quote a system build.
Unless you are building a super computer, or a website with millions of hits a day, Windows Server 2012 has suited the needs of our clients in nearly every venue. Clustering services with windows has improved but not enough for me to trust it in large scale web hosting or SQL environments (mainly due to pricing over free Linux/Unix, at those scales the cost of a unix admin is far less then the licensing around 1000 server cals or MS SQL.) But when it comes to the standard enterprise or SMB servers, Windows 2012 has significant advantages and ultimately costs less to support due to the number of resources available that can support the product at a reasonable or even fixed price (like and Managed Services Provider).
  • The learning curve is fairly short compared to past implementations of Microsoft Server, but do require a depth and breadth of knowledge to fully take advantage of the features and functions of the server OS.
  • Microsoft still has a very large target on its back due to the market share of their OS, but also have significantly more experience dealing with threats that their counter parts (Unix/Linux/Apple)
  • The familiar layout and nomenclature allows for most novice users to gain quick skills in managing small portions of the system, but to truly get the most out of the system, you still need an engineer level resource at least part time to map out the long term strategy of IT for your business.
I am well versed in Ubuntu, Redhat, HP UX, and Apple (Debian Varient) platforms. While Unix and Linux products are cheaper, they pose a limitation in the number and cost of engineering resources that are required to get the most out them. I have found that Windows, even with its steep coasts, usually pay for themselves over time, with the reduced cost of the staff needed to support it.
I've carefully reviewed the servers and services currently running on Windows Server 2012, and given the opportunity would renew them as is going forward. There are two systems I currently have in place, one is a very large Linux implementation for a large ecommerce site, and one is a very large backup solution front ended by FTP servers running Linux. Neither are well suited for Windows, but the overall network infrastructure is and will be Windows Server for the foreseeable future.
December 18, 2014

Windows Server

Paulo Rezende | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The Windows platform is used by Active Directory, application, web and database servers.
  • Active Directory: easy to use and manage. Integration available on my systems.
  • I think the product has evolved a lot and I'm satisfied with its features.
Usually Linux is a better option, but it depends on what you need to do and what kind of expertise you have.
  • Better user management with Active Directory.
I work with Windows and Linux systems but most of times the decision is based on the customer requirements.
For LDAP / directory services I would recommend Windows, but for other services the decision relies on the compatibility between the OS and the desired service.
Windows Server works fine. I would keep using it unless I'm able to port it to Linux.
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