Really? I haven't played with Server 2008. I take it that it was written from the ground up?

The networking stack was. The 64 bit edition also includes HyperV - which is like Xen is on linux.

2008s file transfer speed is significantly faster, specifically with windows vista and IIS seems to be much more scalable.

On my network file transfers between Vista SP1 and server 2008 were about 20+ times faster, making loading roaming profiles etc.... much better.

Its also much much more secure by default and has better hardware support, a nice scriptable shell akin to bash, a modular OS structure, and hot patching.

1. hyperV is very far from Xen
2. scriptable powershell is only available on the full version, none on the core version
3. transfer speeds are the same as before, the bottleneck is as usual - bandwidth and disk access times

The core version is designed for remote management hence no powershell

secondly, transfer rate is faster if client and server both support remote differential compression, which speeds up replication and profile syncs significantly

no powershell in core is due to the impossibility of installing .net framework.

transfer rates are not faster, profile sync algorithm is improved to transfer less. these are different things.

try to transfer large files, or use ping -l for large icmp packet transfer to check for differences

GNU/Linux vs Windows?

It's depend on your purpose with your computer. If you would like build up a stable good server from your machine GNU/Linux can be a good choice for you. If you are in an office and would like setup an OS for your employee M$ Windows is better. In fact according to the statistic of netcraft dot com the operation system of server machines in the top most cases is the GNU/Linux.

You're right, I keep telling every body what's been written in my textbook, that Windows is proven to outperform everyone else in terms of throughput and response time in interactive systems.
For one, Windows implements some microkernel designs (ideal for webservers) whereas Linux is strictly monolithic (nicknamed "the Big Mess"). And, everything gets done faster with Windows than with Linux. In terms of open-source software, Linux isn't that great either, it's just much over-hyped. Solaris has also been proven to outperform Linux in terms of speed as well, and is actually POSIX-compliant - making it a UNIX system. Hell, even Windows comes closer than Linux to being a UNIX system using Interix. And, Open Solaris is open source and free so you can use it on your cheap web server without having to spend a dime!

I myself, use Linux for programming and to get away from Windows because much of the free opensource software out there doesn't run on Solaris. And, rather than scratching my head to figure out how to get it to work on Solaris (also a common problem on Linux) I just stick with a system which already works. It's not that I hate Linux or think it's a terrible system, it's just that it's over-hyped (much like those mac computers). Like, the mass populace are going to immediately cling to something, never willing to explore anything else, while all the Linux-fanatics spout their propaganda, preventing any up and coming mind which is willing to explore other options, from ever exploring anything else.

examples please? windows server systems are in most cases much slower than *nix based systems, used for the same tasks on the same hardware.
even windows native smb/cifs is outperformed by properly tuned samba on linux


and that is why apache is the most popular http server in the world?


everything? I really find it hard to believe. I am currently working on migrating several solutions between platforms, and every time a simple bash script solves a ton of work I would have to do manually in windows, I like linux more.

what OSS exactly aqre you talking about? because no other system has the possibility of installing hundreds of thousands OSS packages, without doing anything but a few clicks or a simple command

solaris has its own issues.

can say the same about any linux distro

like what? OS/2? VMX? Netware?

Um, no. I find windows systems far far easier to manage than linux systems. Also, you can get extremely good scripting using PowerShell, WMI etc..

BSD, Opensolaris, ReactOS, list goes on...

Like what. For server appss it seems to benchmark much higher in terms of speed.

ReactOS for example.

have you used powershell or WMI? the scripts are much longer and extremely complex. nothing easy or convenient about them, especially if you're used to bash or (just to keep things in proportion) python

I don't see anything MS made in that list

like compatibility with other systems, hardware issues, very basic GUI, the list goes on...

15 years in IT, and I have never seen that in production.