I happen upon this page:

http://www.msfn.org/win2k3/index.htm

I want to ask, is there a benefit running Windows Server 2003 on a desktop computer, compared to WinXP? What are the drawbacks?

benefits:
multiple simultaneous users, both local and remote
starts with all ports closed, allowing you to download OS updates before beeing intruded
shadow copy handling
no product activation

drawbacks:
some software will refuse to run and ask you to buy a server license instead of a standard license

It mostly depends how you like your system right after install. XP is "almost everything on", and 2003 is "almost everything off". The other thing that might influence desktop usage is lack of fast user switching in 2003. Plus, there are software products, especially free, that won't install on 2k3. Same applies to some games (note: this isn't technical limitation, just that publishers don't want their products installed on 2k3).
And it's better to not play with drivers that weren't meant for 2k3 - you might get lucky, you might not (system instability).

As for the other usual claim that 2003 feels more snappy - since this is Hydrogenaudio, it's safe to say that this difference can be explained entirelly by placebo (when talking about similarly configured systems, for example if XP has also most features turned off).

Disclaimer: I'm using 2003 exclusivelly for over a year.

How about the codebase? Is Win2003's codebase more bugfree than WinXP?

I recall a way to 'flip' Win2000 Pro into Win2000 Server, and vice versa. It works really well, as the codebase is shared completely.

The method also warns against 'flipping' WinXP into Windows server, as the server code in WinXP is very buggy.

Is it possible to 'flip' Win2003 into WinXP and back again?

Windows 2000 Professional & Server were the same codebase. Not so with XP & 2003. One can actually see this in their internal version numbering - XP is NT 5.1, and 2003 is NT 5.2. Curiosity: XP 64bit is also NT 5.2 (yep, built on 2003 codebase)
So...there's no magical switch. Personally the only reason why I would want to do that is to install on 2003 software which checks version and refuses installation. I researched few means to do that some time ago...but none worked very well. And turned out to be unnecessary in my case.

Okay, I got your point. I just want to know the 'flipping' only to install those programs that detect the Windows version and refuse to install on servers, since programs designed-for-servers are almost invariably much more expensive...

'Flipping' did wonders back when I was using Windows 2000 Server... saved a lot of money there

I had no real luck into fooling programs into believing that I am using a consumer OS instead of a server OS, so in some cases (anti-virus, as an example) it restricted my choice of software. As a further restriction, my OS is win2k3x64.

But this is quite a rare case.

Good point on the fast user switching that is missing:
Under 2k3 you can "switch" user sessions using remote desktop (connecting to localhost instead of a true remote computer), but 3d acceleration or hardware overlay won't be usable when connected to a "remote" desktop.
On the other hand, it allows, as an example, to have an admin session inside a window while you are still logged and using your user session.

edit:
in the case of drivers, under x64 the OS version is the same for XP and 2k3, so the drivers are the same

Hey Gabriel, that's a nice trick! How come I didn't think of that previously...

Edit: Slight digress...

Is Windows 2003 Release 2 worth it? I mean, I must make a proposal to down the server (again) and reinstall the server (again), not to mention buying the CD's (again).

This thread on MSFN.org:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=86740

Provides a tool (on yet another server) to flip Windows Server 2003 into Windows XP Turbocharged.

That seems intresting. I'll have to give it a go sometime.
I was always picky about Windows XP codebase also so I tried out Server 2003 and found out that most applications didnt like it very much.

But with Vista round the corner, is it worth it?

@TREX6662k6: To borrow your words, most applications don't like Vista very much

Plus, remember the footprint: Vista is a lot bigger than Server 2003.

I haven't noticed "most" application to not work under 2k3. The only cases that I noticed are application asking you to buy the server version instead of the consumer version. This usually happens with antiviruses, firewall and backup apps, which are also sold in "server" versions (ie same application but higher price).
Except those cases, I did not noticed any application refusing to work.


I would personnaly not trust such application, as you do not really know what it's doing.
Changing some default parameters of 2k3 to use it as a workstation is at most a matter of half an hour, and in this case you know the changes you made.

IIRC to change Windows 2000 Server into Windows 2000 Professional, only minor changes in registry is required. But I can't remember what.

Judging from the size of the tool, it might perform just such function. The tool itself is hosted in another forum. I didn't check the other forum, but I think the forum will explain what the tool does.

There is a great difference in regards of Win2k3; Win2000 Server and Win2000 Pro share the exact same codebase, while Win2k3's codebase is more advanced from WinXP's.

So, suppose I have Win2k3 Release 2, its codebase is much more advanced than WinXP. I install Win2k3 R2, then flip it into WinXP, I'll have WinXP with the latest codebase.

Most of those applications I recall not working were Games. I recall, Manhunt and a few others not installing because setup.exe detected a "Incompatable" OS. This maybe fixed once its "flipped" since it would be indentified as WinXP.



Ah yeah, id thought id mention it because its the newest codebase, but with those problems stated above, server 2003 would be the next option.

Since footprint was mentioned I thought I might post these here
Windows XP "Mönch"
"Mönch" Features

Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
Features

Even though its for legacy computers, it doesnt seem to be very legacy friendly. Dial up isnt supported, nor 16bit applications. You cant even ping. But both allow for a much smaller footprint. Based on NT5.1 (not sure about "Mönch" though)

Well, it might be possible that my experience here is differing from the "usual" one, as I am using 2k3x64, which is NT5.2x64, and the same code base is used for xp64. (yes, xp64 is built onto the 2k3 base, while xp32 is not)

I've been using Server 2003 for many months now and it seems to be slightly faster then XP, but it is probably just the placebo effect. I havn't gotten a virus on it with no anti-virus installed, but then again I didn't on XP either.

Everything works well. The XP drivers install and work perfectly (I think atleast... They seem to work fine.) The only thing that doesn't work is Acronis Disk Director 10 (you'll get a popup saying it doesn't work on servers or something like that). Oh, and Windowsblinds. It installs fine but seems to really mess up. I luckily got it uninstalled and everything back to normal.

Server 2003, plain out-of-the-box, will run faster than XP. But this is mostly due to:
- Many services unnecessary on a server (e.g. Themes) are stopped
- More aggressive cache settings (settable using CachemanXP)

Update:
The tool I mentioned above doesn't actually flip Server into XP; it just sets parameters enabling 2003 to run acceptably as workstation.

I'm going to google for that way to flip Win2000 Server into Win2000 Professional and test it on my Win2k3 installation.

Ha! Found the tool! It's called NTSwitch, and I'm going to test it on my Win2k3!