Windows Server - The only way to manage your Microsoft Environment.
Updated November 20, 2019

Windows Server - The only way to manage your Microsoft Environment.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Windows Server

We rely on Windows Server for our corporate office network as we are a Microsoft-based organisation. We use it for everything from user and device management, group policy management, DHCP, local network DNS, ADFS for single sign-on for many systems and much more. Everything that is based in the Windows Server environment is as you would expect it and provides the functionality the business needs in a modern office environment with seamless integration into cloud platforms such as Office 365. For people like myself who have managed Windows servers for over 15 years, the latest version of Windows Server is efficient, streamlined and full of features that work in the "Microsoft" way that we are used to.

Pros

  • 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.

Cons

  • 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.
  • Windows Server is needed for the corporate office network using Microsoft endpoints and systems. Without it, the system would be unmanageable.
  • As all the systems used with Windows Server such as Active Directory, DNS, DHCP etc are industry standard, the experience both from an admin side and an end-user experience is great!
  • ROI is still good in my opinion especially with the current licensing model which allows for software assurance so we can keep up to date with the latest versions.
The only alternative system I have ever used to Windows Server is just having standalone end points running Microsoft Windows Desktop systems. This causes all sorts of issues with regards to network security, user and device management and access to shared resources such as files and printers on the network. In the Microsoft "Workgroup" environment (IE, with an AD Domain) the end-user experience is not good and the management of such systems is complex and time consuming!
Microsoft's support is hugely wide-ranging from articles online to having to contact them directly for the more serious issues. In recent years when I have contacted them directly, I have found the support o be excellent as I have found myself connected to very knowledgeable people in the field in which I needed the support. The online support available is vast and I tend to find most of the time that there is always someone out there who has had the same issue as me in the past and knows something about how to resolve it! This is the advantage of using industry standard and long-established systems such as Windows Server.

Do you think Windows Server delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Windows Server's feature set?

Yes

Did Windows Server live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Windows Server go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Windows Server again?

Yes

Any environment that uses Microsoft software and hardware should run with a Windows Server infrastructure behind it. I've worked in organisations in the past that have used Windows PCs and no server behind them and it causes a huge number of problems in terms of time to manage the use of devices and causes problems with security over the network and access to shared data. Whilst things are migrating towards being completely cloud based, there is still a need, at the moment in my opinion, for a Windows Server infrastructure for both end-user experience and admin maintenance.

Comments

More Reviews of Windows Server

  1. Home
  2. Operating Systems
  3. Windows Server Reviews
  4. User Review of Windows Server