Windows Server Reviews

We use Windows Server to host applications, host files, emails, Windows server emails, and data exchange. But for the most part, we use it to host applications, directory services, and DNS services. 

I like the views in the user interface. 

It would help if Microsoft made it lighter to run on the servers and made troubleshooting much easier. I have to deal with unexpected errors and faults that happen in Windows. It also crashes. 

When it's a big environment, especially in an industrialized environment, we see unexpected errors. They create instability, or unexpected errors happen in the infrastructure. You need to restart the server or restart the services. You don't know the root cause of these errors.

I've been working with Windows Server for about 20 years.

Sometimes we have to deal with unexpected errors that create instability.

Windows Server is mostly scalable. However, you run into problems if it's going to be very big. If something happens, troubleshooting it will be very difficult.

Microsoft technical support is good.

The initial setup is mostly straightforward. 

The Windows Server standard edition is affordable. But the cost of the data center edition is high, especially compared to some competitors. Some competitors are offering their operating systems for free.

I would tell potential customers of Windows Server that they need to study it. They need to understand their business case very well. If features are available in Windows Server, they can safely go for it, but they need to study the design very well.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Windows Server an eight.

We are using Windows Server 2016 for our organization's backend applications which reside in a data center. HP provides us with our Windows platforms, and we also have Unix platforms from them as well.

We have been using Windows environments since I joined my organization, which is close to 20 years now. Currently, we're doing what you can call a hosted private cloud with colocation and we are running some huge workloads using Windows Server in this cloud.

From our side, the organization's 2800 end users are mostly running Windows 10 in a highly virtualized environment. So whenever we need more resources, it takes just a couple of minutes to get it up and running.

Overall, Windows Server 2016 provides a stable environment for some of the very large workloads that it is subjected to in our organization, and it is very easy to use.

There are lots of improvements that can be brought by Microsoft, although for us Windows Server works mostly as expected. For how we're using Windows Server, security is a top priority, so when talking security, it can always be improved upon, no matter what.

Then there's the performance side, which is not bad, but we are currently looking to increase capacity and we have found that we need to enhance the hardware to get the performance we are looking for. Because of this, we are going to be refreshing the hardware and moving to new infrastructure in the next few weeks.

I have been using Windows Server for many years now.

It is very stable. 

We have enterprise support with them which I cannot personally comment on.

We are running a form of Windows Servers, from our side, which are highly virtualized. So from where we're sitting, to provision Windows Server takes just a couple of clicks and it is up and running.

For the backend systems where we implement Windows Server at the data center, the entire IT team is around 120 people. Then, from a user perspective, much of it is self-service, meaning users can request to provision as needed from the pool of virtualized resources.

Our current license is an enterprise license agreement which gives you a whole lot of possibility, especially when you go through an R&D process. For example, you can provision everything, spread the service use over six months, and then wrap it up. It gives you a lot of flexibility.

Windows Server is a stable product and there's no way we will change it for something else.

I would rate Windows Server an eight out of ten.

Windows Server can be used for any kind of application. It is an operating system that supports enterprise applications. There is no application that doesn't go with Windows.

It could be more stable. Windows has certain problems that Unix platforms don't have. It requires more administrative effort as compared to Unix. I don't know why Microsoft has not changed that. It generates a lot of trash data, so slowly and steadily, you find more and more space being utilized. There is some kind of administrative load, which doesn't happen with Unix.

I have been using this solution for many years.

It is stable, but its stability can be better.

We have a maximum of 50 or 60 users. 

We didn't use their support much. 

It was very easy to install. The time period for installation depends on the complexity. If we want to simply install with the default option, it doesn't take much time. If you want to enable all of the service options that Windows provides, such as SNMP, it will take longer. If you have to install IAS and all such things, it will take time.

I would recommend this solution to others. We plan to keep using it.

I would rate Windows Server a seven out of ten.

I've used it with government applications to integrate and install with Shine server and Fire servers, enabling remote access. For some clients, we have developed and installed an integrated solution for about 500 users and are usually 'anywhere applications.' One client is a government permit office, and they use it for GIS applications and keep track of services.

I'm quite satisfied with Windows Server. I find mutual authentication and the environment useful. Over the years, I've seen some very good improvements in the Windows Server's quality and functionality.

I find ethernet configuration and implementation difficult. I would also like to see more reliable updates.

I have been using Windows Server for more than 15 years.

When compared to the legacy Windows Server, stability has improved. 

Windows Server technical support is good. Over the last 15 years, I've used Microsoft technical support maybe 300 times or less, and those experiences were good.

For the most part, the initial setup is straightforward. In my experience, about 80% of the implementations were straightforward, and about 20% were a little more difficult.

It took us about six to eight months to deploy the Windows Server for my client at the government permit office.

In our case, we primarily use Microsoft, so the cost is a lot less. But some of our customers have spent approximately $12,000 a year on the operating system license.

Windows Server is a nice product, but it does have some small problems. I would recommend potential customers to do some research first. 

It's a little more difficult to implement this operating system with functionality in the cloud. Everything, including the files and interface, keeps us in a Microsoft environment, and when moving applications to the cloud, some people might find it challenging.

They have training for all the features that Microsoft offers. Technology is evolving quickly. Although I've been in this market for 25 years, I can see that I'm getting a little bit left behind because of a lack of formal training in the new functions that Microsoft and many other companies are implementing. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Windows Server an eight.

We are primarily using Windows Server for monitoring purposes.

The most valuable features are the file transfer protocol (FTP) and the secure file transfer protocol (SFTP). These are both used for file sharing.

The reporting, event logging, and event management functionalities need to be improved.

Windows Server needs more applications from the monitoring and backup perspective. These are not incorporated yet. In previous versions, the backup software was available, but not now.

I have been using Windows Server for 10 years.

There are bugs that appear but Microsoft provides updates that can rectify the bugs or expand the number of features.

Most of the features are scalable. Windows 2016 and 2019 may be more scalable, but we have not recently upgraded the infrastructure.

Our customer has a small number of people using Windows Server. 

We began with using Windows Server and we are still using it. We are looking to migrate to Linux as well, but it depends on the infrastructure and the types of licenses. Microsoft recently began including lots of applications that require licenses, where they were not needed previously.

We are also using Ubuntu Linux and CentOS, which are open-source solutions.

Certain tools are easier to use, depending on whether you are using Linux or Windows.

The initial setup is straightforward and our deployment was completed in three months.

When we implement this solution, we start in a development environment and then move it to production.

Our in-house team performed the deployment.

The number of staff required for maintenance depends on the environment, infrastructure, and the type of activity that is being done.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Our use cases are usually data and analytics. We are building platforms for our clients to exploit their data. We are building the data curation. 

Also, the analytics for the front end, and the presentation of the data for the end-user.

The features that I like the most are that it's easy to use and the integration.

In terms of support, it's pretty complicated when you have to study the documentation.

It would definitely be helpful if the documentation could be more straightforward.

I have been working with Windows Server for eight years.

We are usually working with the latest version.

Windows Server is stable.

It's a scalable product. The number of users depends on our customers. Some customers have as many as 50 users while some others have 15 users. It really depends on the clients, but we're not in the thousands of end-users.

The technical support is pretty good. We have a good relationship with our vendor's specialists. We mostly work with Microsoft and some other vendors.

Overall, they are supportive.

The initial setup is straightforward.

It took approximately a month to deploy, but it depends on the number of installations we have. Some are larger and some smaller.

We need two or three staff members to deploy it. They are PDAs, they are infrastructure people who have the tech knowledge. 

We have a team in our organization that we call specialists to configure the server. They are tech-savvy, and they know all about the backend.

We are integrators.

There are licensing costs for this solution, although it's not expensive. Microsoft is relatively inexpensive compared to other database platforms.

I would recommend this solution to others who want to use Windows Server.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I'm an ICT system engineer and we are customers of Microsoft. 

The most valuable part about nowadays Windows is PowerShell. They got serious and implemented a real console which was always lacking in Windows. 

Compared to Linux, Windows requires a lot of restarts. If you get a CU update every month, you have to restart. Linux is better in that regard. Sometimes the PowerShell has an overly complicated syntax. 

I'd like to see some more features in the Windows administration kit - the WAC. It's this new product you got on the server and if you have a website you can manage your entire machine. It's a pretty good product, but it's still lacking some features like reporting because it's always a problem to have a dashboard for all your Windows machines, because Microsoft wants you to buy SCCM and all their monitoring services. The WAC is pretty nice but it still lacks some features. It would be great if they would develop it further.

I've been using this solution for 20 years. 

It's pretty stable compared to the old Windows version, except sometimes there are problems with the CU updates. Maybe they should consider not employing so many updates and instead focus on the quality of the updates. 

From the numbers of CPU you can pop into your machine, it's really scalable, but you need to be aware that Windows still has problems with a lot of CPUs. Managing CPUs would likely be better in Windows compared to Linux. 

The initial setup is really straightforward, especially nowadays if you're using a WSUS server together with Microsoft deployment, you'll get it just perfect. It's faster than setting up the Linux box. 

I would recommend this solution but it depends on the software you are going to use it on.  When it's about a high performance web server, I would prefer Linux because you would choose to stick to engines as a web server and this product does not run very well on Windows, so you'd end up with Linux anyway.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

The main features that we are using are active directory, domain, and DNS. 

They can simplify the utilization and control of the system when you have a lot of setups. They provided something called Windows Center or Control Center in version 2019. It's a free tool that comes with the Windows Server. You can install it on your desktop and use it. 

This tool simplifies the control and monitoring of all servers. If I have 200 servers, I don't need to log in to each one to configure it. I can manage them from this tool. However, this tool needs quite a lot of improvements. It's difficult to use, and they need to improve it. 

I have been using this solution since 1990. Currently, we are using the latest version. We have the cloud and on-premises deployments. 

It is good.

We never contacted them.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took around 15 minutes. Usually, on the server, we don't do the physical installation. When we install initially, we install an image. You just create an image, and that's it. After that, we don't need to do an installation.

There are only two options in the market: Windows and Linux. It depends on your application. If you have an application that requires Windows, you go with Windows Server. Otherwise, you go for Linux. There are not enough choices to choose from and decide. 

They had an issue in version 2016 related to the slowness of update management, but they already solved it in version 2019. It was impacting batch management. The time that Windows required was a lot, but it was fixed in version 2019. That was the only issue we faced in Windows Server. Other than that, it's fine.

I would advise on the version, not on the solution itself, that is, whether to use Windows Server or not. If Windows Server is a required solution, you have to take it. It's not an option. However, I would advise to not use version 2016. 

I would rate Windows Server a ten out of ten. If your application is required on Windows, it's not comparable to any other solution. If an application can work with Windows or Linux, for sure, I'm going with Linux.