Understanding the future security of Windows SP2

Actually I was involved in some beta testing with it and its not bad, have a copy somewhere.

But how many organizations have switched to it??? so therefore its not much help to me at the moment, but thanks anyway.

The majority of people that were using windows 2000 Server edition switched to 2003 Server edition.

No, absolutely not, most clients I have been working with are still using Win2k for their Windows servers, and that includes serveral large banks, credit card processing firms, and big consulting companues, not seeing much use of Windows 2003 at all on a large scale corporate use. Most large corps wait at least a year or two before swicthing over.
Add to this the poor economic situation of the past coupole of years and the tightening of IT budgets by many companies and the result is that there is still a huge Windows 2000 base out there (and even a number of NT systems).

Then allow me to rephrase:

Almost all companies I have done webwork for, or security work, have upgraded to 2003 Server Edition. Even then, Windows 2000 Server Edition is another server oriented distro, unlike Windows 2000 Proffessional. There are quite a few server-based distro's in Windows, you just have to look :D Thus solving your problem

Ok, well all the companies I have done work with, with includes probably half the fortune 100 are still using Win2k as their main Windows platform with only a small Window 2003 installation.

And I still think there is an inherent problem with the professional, server, advance server, data center, web server etc... distros being built around the same core for the most part. AIX, AS400, HP-UX, Tru64 etc... do not come in a nice shrinked down home user version, instead they come in solid (for the most part) server orientated distributions that do their job well. I believe that only when MS stop trying to please everyone with one thing will they be able to achive what they want. Of course if we want to stay with the Linux v Windows for server argument then sure, Windows does a fine job, but then Linux is still not achieving widespread acceptance as the server platform of choice. This is, of course my opinion, and is based entirely on my experiences, buts that what I have seen, and do contiue to see every day.

I think its important not to believe all the MS hype about this stuff, for instance right now on the MS Windows 2003 website you can read all about how Network World voted Windows best server os, when compared to... Suse, Redhat, OSX, and Netware, I mean come on, how about Windows 2003 v AIX, Solaris, AS400, Tru64, etc... and lets not do comparisons based on how nice the GUI looks, or how many types of themes we can have, lets compare on uptime, security, and performance. If MS want to only compare Windows to Linux, OSX and Netware, then lets see them stop touting it as the OS to replace all your servers with.

And you know, at the end of the day I really want Windows to work because I do like it, but in the real world of high volume transactional processing where reliabity and performance are what counts, it just doesn`t hold up(in my experience).


Pooh. I fear we could keep going back and forth on this all day....

Quote:

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I really want Windows to work because I do like it,

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I don't never notice it *not working* though, through what I can most certainly call a looong history of use with it. Proper configurations almost always ends in proper usage

But that isn't the point :) And being as level headed and kind as you are, I don't want to see this go into an argument.

My point was that when you mentioned that the Win distros were too Home orientented and not Server oriented enough, I wanted to point out a few that were very server oriented. Windows 2k server, Windows 2003 Server. Hell, sometimes they are so against desktop oriented behavior that you have to disable some services and enable others, just to have audio. That was my origonal point. Just that they are out there :) And from my experience, they do have the security and stability (talking about the serve distros) that you wanted. Thus why I mentioned them, but not in a sense to argue.

Thanks for your thoughts! :D

ok, lets agree to disagree on this, but I am still going to wait for the Windows 2003 v Other server OS comparisons..... :D

Comparisons:

http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol...NET/TuxNET.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/default.mspx

http://www.nwfusion.com/best/2004/0223os.html

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1238672,00.asp


Of course you can find tons of *anti* Windows 2003 server papers out there. But it falls back to an old adagio: "An admin who does not understand his tools, will blame the OS before blaming himself"


Also note the same rule of thumb applies: If you learn and fully understand the OS, you can make it do whatever you want. Regardless of "distro" or "linux-based windows-based"


edit: Yes, agreeing to disagree is a happy thing :)

although those comparisons are all Windows v Linux, as I mentoned before...

I fear we may both be last answer freaks.... this could go on for days... lol.

:D

I thought you wanted Windows Server vs Linux Server comparisons? Or do you mean Windows Server versus Windows Desktop comparisons?