Windows Server

Windows Server directory services are very powerful. Think about it--easily organizing the directory to store documents in a secure way. I think that's awesome.

Windows Server has a unique way of organizing users. This organization can be used across multiple other platforms for different applications, which is really amazing.

Another unique feature of Windows Server is its document sharing capabilities. We can share documents across multiple users and secure them at the same time.

Windows Server is a very complex piece of technology. It tends to become more complicated to handle with time, so including a feature that will guide engineers on how to do initial setup so as to avoid some feature complexities will help.

I will like to see Windows Server open to accepting applications that run on systems like Linux.

Windows Server should integrate tools to cleanup WSUS in an efficient way on a timely basis.

Hosting common business applications.

Easy file sharing and security.

Simple user management and authentication.

As a leader in the industry it is also a target for security flaws and exploits. Regular patching required.

At times there are things you would expect to be able to do from a GUI but have to do at the command line.

Cost, competitors in the Linux world can often provide a good value alternative.

Permissions Management within Active Directory - It can be complicated, but it is as granular as you could ever want.

Management of the Server can be done with a GUI or CLI - this lowers the barrier of entry for learning the environment.

Roles and Features are installed within a wizard - this is safer than adding or changing repositories.

Windows Server normally could benefit from trimming. There are non-essential services that are enabled by default, and sometimes when they do not auto-start, it will trigger an alarm, which is false. Nobody wants to see anything but green across the board!

Windows Server's power comes from Active Directory - so if you want a server that is not tied to your domain, you will probably be crippling yourself if you choose windows outside of a few select use cases.

I would like to see a licensing shift from per core back to per socket. This makes HA environments tricky to license.

Stable operating system environment

Reliable file system (NTFS)

Native services like file, print, DNS, Active Directory, etc.

Native SSH support

Native configuration management

Some configuration locations mixed with old control panel are hard to find

User management.

Security polices.

Powershell.

Configurable.

Learning curve.

Maintenance costs.

Upgrade costs.

Cal licenses.

Windows Server acting as a domain controller allows for very comprehensive management of computers and workstations across an organization, specifically when it comes to Active Directory and Group Policy.

Active Directory allows for comprehensive managements of users within a domain (or organizational unit). User groups can be created with different permissions for various network resources, and users can be added to multiple different groups. In addition, login scripts can be created that are linked to each user allowing for automatic mapping of network drives and printers (among other items) every time a user logs in. As such, with the correct login script, a new user can login for the first time and have access to all the necessary resources within an organization.

Once a domain is created, adding computers to it is quick and easy. Any computer that is a part of a domain can be logged in by any domain user. Removing a computer from a domain, via Active Directory, immediately revokes all domain users ability to login to that computer.

Group Policy, an integral part of Windows Server, is a vast and comprehensive tool to push out settings to domain computers and users. Settings can be anything from adding or removing mapped network drives, adding or removing printers, turning on and off specific Windows settings. Group Policy can be managed on both a computer basis and a user basis.

Windows Server's built-in file sharing capabilities allow it to be used as a powerful file server. Permissions for shared folders can be set on a per-user basis and/or via group membership. Using advanced sharing features, a file or folder can be shared via multiple names with different permissions for each shared name.

Windows Server includes a powerful DNS server that works in conjunction with the Domain Controller functionality. The DNS server supports forward and reverse zones as well as manually adding items into a DNS zone.

Hyper-V is included with Windows Server, providing a powerful and first-party way to create virtual machines.

Windows Server includes a built-in DHCP server that can be used in place of a standard network router.

Windows Server includes a built-in web server hosting functionality via IIS (Internet Information Services)

Windows Server is extremely complex, and while newer versions have eased the initial setup process, setting up a server is still a very time consuming and difficult task.

The complexity of Windows Server also makes troubleshooting any problems that arise extremely difficult, both in tracking down the actual issue and then resolving the issue. Often times a problem can manifest itself in more than one way, making searching for the specific problem also difficult.

Windows Server is also very expensive, with complex and confusing licensing terms. In fact, Microsoft provides a 32-page PDF guide on Windows Server licensing, which is in and of itself dense and confusing to follow. To make matters more complicated, there multiple different version of Windows Server itself - Nano, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter edition, and each edition has different licensing terms. Licensing terms include items such as the physical processor's cores of the server, how many users will be accessing the server (called a CAL - client access license), and a plethora of other items.

Microsoft's support for Windows Server can be extremely frustrating at times. While Microsoft hosts a very active user forum, Microsoft employees who frequent those forums often provide only stock answers to questions (without actually reading the details) or no answers at all. For more in-depth - phone support can be quite expensive.

Upgrading a Windows Server from one major version to another (i.e. 2012 to 2016) is a frustratingly complex and dangerous procedure, as many things can go wrong during the upgrading, essentially breaking the entire setup. In fact, Microsoft doesn't even suggest doing an in-place upgrade, but to perform a backup of the existing server, doing a clean install of the new version, and migrating the information from the older version to the new version. In general, it is not even recommended to upgrade from one version to another as the risk significantly outweigh the benefits.

Robustness

Reliable

Ease of deployment

Deprecate old technologies

File Server

Domain login and workstation control

Windows Server can be high priced

Updates can sometimes cause issues, but not so much within the last several years.

It's pretty much standard for all environments.

It supports a vast number of applications.

Some admin panels are not easily accessible.

It can be a resource hog compared to Linux servers.

Active directory.

GPOs.

File hosting.

Comes at a very high price.

Ease of use.

Stable OS.

Great support.

Wide reasources.

Cost of use.

Hardware requirments.

User and device management out of the box. Active directory is a proven system for doing this and works just as well as it always has.

ADFS providing integration into many third-party applications using SAML authentication. We use this heavily to make user experience as simple and straightforward as we can.

Local DHCP. It's another one of these systems that is very easy to setup and use out of the box and requires very little maintenance, if any. The system is almost unchanged throughout the years and so anyone with server experience can manage it.

Windows Updates! A fairly large amount of time is taken up by having to keep on top of Windows Updates. Having to reboot server after installation causes issues with critical systems and installing updates certainly in Server 2016 was a nightmare. This is improved however in 2019.

Drive space used by GUI installations is getting large and large as time goes on.

Licensing - as with all Microsoft products, licensing is a minefield however, if it didn't change every year they would give people a chance to get to used to it.

Manage users and computers.

Group policy.

File sharing.

Cal’s are expensive.

No upgrade path for essentials sku’s.

Training is difficult and expensive.

File and print sharing.

User authentication via Active Directory.

User policy enforcement via Group Policy.

ADFS could be more easily configure for cloud integrations.

Nothing else comes to mind.

Active Directory--Just about every application has some sort of AD plug-in. Makes user and group management easier.

File services.

Large installed user/community base.

When set up correctly, DNS/DHCP.

Support-ugh. I have had some good support experiences in the past, but the past few years...?

QA testing for patches. Boot loops?

Licensing.

Runs applications built for Windows perfectly.

Provides management capabilities.

Has constant security updates.

Upgrades to a newer OS could be easier.

Since its a popular platform it can use additional security enhancements.

Costs are expensive to license.

Option for minimalistic and low resource install

Robust and mitigative design

Mature

Improvement in Docker Containers to allow both Windows and Linux images to run concurrently.

During install the ability to offer the choice of configuring the OS and its policies to meet a desired standard template e.g, PCIDSS.

Make the Windows Firewall more like Azures Security Groups.

DHCP is done the best with Windows Server. Other software just gets in the way.

Nothing comes close to AD with Windows Server.

DNS can easily be controlled with Windows Server as well.

The install process could be a little easier.

Setting up an exchange is a little complex when it should be much simpler.

Test your OS updates more so our servers don't crash.

Easy setup.

User-friendly for those used to the Windows GUI.

Low cost.

Had to buy Anti-virus specifically for Windows Servers, and it was pricey for only 1 license.

The attached Hard Drive backup took a lot of tinkering to get functioning properly, which shouldn't be the case in this day and age.

Some of the built-in settings and programs were bloatware.

Having an integrated GUI eases management.

Windows Servers' uptime is fairly well.

There are many third-party management tools where there is no solution brought by Microsoft.

The requirement to restart after updates is the worst thing about Windows Server.

Windows Service infrastructure sometimes has issues to start an application as a service.

There is an event and troubleshooting mechanism which doesn't help much mostly. Also, IDs which were given for a problem are not user-friendly.

Some configurations require deep diving into the registry and sometimes it feels like it doesn't work due to complicated documentation.

Windows has very good salesman

Windows has very good marketing teams

Stop making excuses for the inability to handle large data

Stop making excuses for how much your product is sucked in the past and fix the problems that it has now like crashing

Build the tools that I can use on our stable systems called Macintosh, build me a powerBI out that I can use on a Mac

Creates a very stable network server environment

Low maintenance

Well organized with GUI interfacing

Fairly cost effective

Licensing

Support

MS push for dependency on PowerShell

The KB documentation of upcoming patches is exceptional.

The community around Windows Server is strong and forthcoming with information.

Since Server 2008, the OS has become much more modular in the deployment of roles and features which has made for significantly easier configuration.

The overall performance of server 2016's UI feels worse than previous versions (running on the same HW spec in the same virtual environment).

Versioning schemes could be more transparent (IIS versions across OS versions, MSSQL versions, etc) and easier to follow.

Managing some security settings via the server registry is fairly cumbersome. Third party applications and community created scripts exist to ease these issues, but with the emphasis on security today, they should have their own control panel section instead.

Microsoft's experience homogenization between their desktop OS and server OS has added a lot of "fluff" and graphical flare to the server OS that isn't really needed and feels like it gets in the way, to be honest.

Hyper V

Active Directory

Group Policies

Windows Server Update Services

The cost, Windows server is unfortunately very expensive.

The backup feature offers very little options, which is why most companies will buy a third party solution.

PowerShell 3.0. Doing commands via the commands rather than the GUI.

HyperV virtualization which has a better feature than the 2008 feature. Its ability to run various operating systems on the server and also able to provide a virtual switch.

Direct Access which is a replacement for VPN.

Also server core.

It is a stable server operating system for now as the organisation has not experienced any issues so far.