Why Businesses Use Windows Server

[@mrmasterofdiabloplay]

Gosh as an IT contractor I've gone into some situations and I think to myself "WTF were they thinking when they set this sh*t up?"

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Hehe, as a former IT contractor... this was almost my thought 90% of the time lol. Early 2000s doing Small Businesses were some of the craziest times for tech. I remember someone having a server 2000 box sitting in a closet - not ventilated, and it kept randomly rebooting. Thank goodness for most of these people moving to just hosted services these days. That was no way to run a small business.

[@zaxwrld]

They probably werent thinking lol

[@petebateman143]

@@ChrisTitusTech I had the same thing with network kit! Installed under desks getting kicked about or cooking in cupboards, used to make me laugh (behind my serious "customer face" of course)

[@FrDismasSayreOP]

Ladies and gentleman: witness the slow transition of a man, from clean-cut Windows Admin to full Stallman. ;)

[@terendo4514]

😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@kaede15]

My rules are pretty simple, if the business is new I recommend all linux servers, but if the business has some years under its belt (usually all windows server 2003, 2008...), I tend to leave it as it is... I mean, I can patch it, improve it, but I never overhaul it. Did it twice.... lesson learnt.

[@jamesofsandiego]

From my experience this is a really good strategy. They'll be back before you know it anyways when it's upgrade time and they know they have to change things.

[@kjeldschouten-lebbing6260]

Depends a bit on the clients too... if they have a LOT of complex Windows (and only windows) AD clients, in those cases windows servers might be preferable...

[@johndank2209]

there are businesses still using windows server 2003 and 2008? why? aren't they vulnerable to all types of attacks? how are they protected?

[@salvaje1]

Chris, Gillette wants to know you location.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

ROFL!

[@pavlospilakoutas]

😄😄😄😄😄 👍

[@ashishpatel350]

they want to talk to him about choosing the right gender?

[@chesterhackenbush]

My beard is 6 inches long - and has built in anti Gillette mountain man survival food stuck in the hair.

[@davidruffin3857]

😂😂😂 while I'm walking around with a whole afro surrounding my jaw

[@elijahhmarshall]

I used to work for a very small company that used windows server. They were not using active directory, or even any virtualization of any kind, yet spent the money on windows server 2012 r2 and a dell tower server computer. It hurt my brain and soul how much money he spent on what was used as a nas and quickbooks server. -Edit Also i saw some comments about people shoving this stuff in a closet. Theirs was in a really hot non ventilated closet with a bunch of DIY wiring to add stuff that the business used. It was sketchy and kinda dangerous in there. Not to mention so so hot.

[@Doppioristretto]

LOL STOP BRO THATS MY EXACT SITUATION... small business (under 10 ws), no AD no VM, no server printing, 2012 r2 prefab server tower, all to run quickbooks 2019 and for a nas... I had to double check your name thought it was me writing it... at least I know there’s another person out there

[@elijahhmarshall]

@@Doppioristretto haha, that's hilarious bro. I guess all small business owners think alike, (or maybe they just meet the same dell sales people lol) I was always amazed at how the business was capable of running. Before I came there was no server backups of any kind, they had 10 years of important data on 10 year old spinning discs lol.

[@kellingc]

Don't hate the GPO, hate how an administrator utilizes them. The enterprise environment I'm in has several forests, and a few buckets for a domain object. The GPOs allows us to define security for foriegn nationals and isolate them from the restricted data, or define a role for a pc, and amon gd other things. You are correct if someone has on policy trying to manage all things, though. If a distro couldnoffer the granularity of the Windows GPO, and the framework if .net, then you will see companies moving over to Linux. Remember, Active Directory was Miceosoft's response to Novell's NDS.

[@phsouzabr]

More about ZFS please! Maybe an overview on your favorite features, and a short tutorial how to setup a home server? Thanks!

[@user-xz1xc1ow3y]

Bump

[@jhoughjr1]

zfs? thought that was passé

[@user-xz1xc1ow3y]

Just recently switched all of my servers from Windows Server to Ubuntu Server, no regrets.

[@alterego157]

Prove it

[@user-xz1xc1ow3y]

@@alterego157 Alright: imgur.com/a/hEay5BD

[@stackett45]

@@alterego157 He burned you troll

[@siafulinux]

Bahahahaha!

[@alterego157]

@Steven Tackett Take it easy soylord, it's just a joke 😂

[@JamesWilson-pq9qp]

So much valuable information! Chris get your cert.s up to date. They are useful credentials to impress doubters. What a fantastic subject for a presentation. You could probably speak hours on it. And inspire coders to improve Linux servers by showing them what is needed.

[@joschafinger126]

c. 04:07 : In schools it's so much easier... With my Ubuntu box I usually need about three attempts until I figure out how to use the WiFi-enabled printer: first one comes out in the dean's office, second in some department other than mine, third in the staff room, where I wanted it. All of the copies just as advertised, even if not necessarily in the right place. Meanwhile, my Mac-using workmates wonder how much it'll cost them to install the app and Windows-users look at me like I was some kind of magician. Sure, printing exams and worksheets for middle-school kids is way easier on the software than booklets and stuff. But having one person dedicated to the tricky bits, or a print shop you can send stuff to by email, should be able to take care of that most of the time.

[@Falador321]

You forgot to mention Microsoft Exchange, I work in IT and lots of our clients still use it. We try to push them to the cloud but they persist to keep their old exchange boxes....

Loonix users pushing cloud is a bit of a contradiction.....

[@nielsvanaert4746]

P.S.: To comment on the printer part, I've used TOSHIBA SMB+/ enterprise printers on my laptop and they work full feature using cups.. including things like stapling and punching. The same goes for KYOCERA. Not too sure about other brands. It works with printer sharing too, if you just use it as a reference object and attach Windows drivers. I've even seen it at a customer as replacement of the Microsoft Windows Print Server as it was constantly crashing with all the variety of drivers on it, where cups didn't have a single problem and just worked.

I see you're becoming a Linux senior, with that beard. Just kidding, awesome video once again!

[@anova363]

I work for a particular US State's government. We still have IIS as the de-facto web hosting platform on the majority of our servers across all of our departments. (we're talking hundreds of servers here.) I'm not a fan of it, but it's what we've got both because of legacy applications and the massive presence of .NET developers. If I had it my way, we'd be running Apache-based web-servers using either PHP or Python, but it looks like things will end up going the .NET Core route, which I believe can run on its own somehow? idk.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Well that is a scary thought, but I'm not surprised. Sorry to hear that you have to deal with IIS... I still have PTSD from those days lol.

[@MAXMAFFIA2013]

Try getting them to migrate to .Net Core as .Net framework will not be supported once .Net 5 comes out as this will be cross platform and more secure

[@myalaskanbackyard9649]

At least you have steady work patching and removing virus , at one place i worked we patched and re installed IIS daily ....

[@MAXMAFFIA2013]

@@myalaskanbackyard9649 in that case there was something wrong with the system

[@NoorquackerInd]

What about Nginx? I've only used Apache and Nginx for home servers so I can only say other people say Nginx scales better for higher workloads, but I found them both pleasant

[@nielsvanaert4746]

Samba 4.x is a full Active Directory replacement, including GPO using RSAT to manage it from a remote computer.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

What is this witchcraft you speak of? Are you saying Samba 4 can push out GPOs that can control policy objects on Windows 10 machines? That would be most excellent, however I'm pretty sure this is only reality in my dreams.

[@nielsvanaert4746]

See wiki.samba.org/index.php/GSOC_GPO for details. There's a few limitations. You need to use RSAT on a client PC.

[@nielsvanaert4746]

@@ChrisTitusTech Another good URL I found with a simple tutorial www.google.com/amp/s/www.tecmint.com/manage-samba4-dns-group-policy-from-windows/amp/

[@AuroraBTC]

Niels van Aert I heard of it but I don‘t know any company or admin that is using this. Do you have experiences with a samba AD? Would be great to know more about this topic!

[@nielsvanaert4746]

@@AuroraBTCI've seen a few SMB companies running it, mostly on a QNAP based NAS (which is Linux with Samba as backend). I've administered these and they work pretty much flawlessly. Other than that I've got it running at home and in a lab environment and I'm not having any problems with it so far. I'm actually evaluating and considering whether this can be a good replacement for SMB customers.

[@krzychaczu]

I witness a huge decline of UNIX and GNU/Linux and a rise of Windows Servers in the Enterprises. My understanding is that Microsoft has heavily invested in making sure that IT graduates are so much vendor locked that all that they know is Windows, Visual Studio, C#, MS SQL, Active Directory, Azure, etc. that the large enterprises become almost completely locked up with M$. 15 years ago you needed a security step-out to deploy a Windows Server in the environment. Nowadays, you'd rather need architectural step-out to deploy anything else than WS on Azure. But everything is cyclic. I foresee a big inhousing back to on-premise DCs, and hopefully back to UNIX/GNU/BSD.

[@krzychaczu]

@user-gs6yg4ye7i In the enteprise environment - it doesn't. Almost everything that you install atop Windows Server needs elevated privileges to run and to be maintaned. Segregation of duties never works as intended, control of elevated privileges never works as intended. Hundreds of weird services, tens of services listening on the network interfaces, thousands of process handlers... an uncontrolable mess. In UNIX everything is so much easier, more convinient and secure. Admins have actual control over the UNIX / Linux systems, while on Windows Server - it's an imaginary control.

[@loadingsolate]

"When Windows just works" except there's something wrong with it and they can't give you a viable solution

[@katanasteel]

What do you mean with "Linux AD"? Is that Fedora-DS (389 directory server)? Or something else?

[@stylianoslayranos6881]

Hello and welcome back from your holiday! Great video explaining all those tidious things a server entails! I hope you'll have time to explain the differences between zfs, btrfs and their home and commercial applications... Maybe a tutorial how they can be utilised in a home or a nas installation... Have a nice day!

[@hugovilchis2260]

In the company where I work we have 50 percent in Linux and 50 percent in Windows. The only reason why we can't drop Microsoft is because AD and GPOs. There is nothing in the open source (even in the red hat space) that can beat the simplicity or even all the functionalities of that products.

[@williambaldwin9346]

A few years ago I had an Intel NUC. Installed Lubuntu on it and setup a folder on the desktop and shared it. Right away it was working everywhere, Windows sharing was such a pain with user permissions, even with "everyone' I still sometimes could not see it, yeah..

[@coso2]

Mounting a win shared folder in Ubuntu was a pain. The file and folders permissions panel in windows is gold compared to the Ubuntu one

[@_Disi]

You would be surprised at how many companies use iis for hosting sites and FTP/FTPS. A lot of my day is dealing with customer's iis set ups.

[@toddymikey]

... and it is a decent web server: "Netcraft data in February 2017 indicates IIS had a "market share of the top million busiest sites" of 10.19%, making it the third most popular web server in the world, behind Apache at 41.41% and nginx at 28.34%." (news.netcraft.com/archives/2017/02/27/february-2017-web-server-survey.html) ... which is a little more than the alleged "no one uses IIS for websites " [kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKnHg6qhmN5ojpY].

[@fourdotsYT]

I'd like to see a video on large scale linux based configuration management systems. What do you think of Canonical's Landscape project, and things like Puppet? Thanks.

[@AndersJackson]

Salt or Cfengine are popular. There are a German system to help automatic installations, but doesn't remember the name. Use in everything from home computer to supercomputers. There are also a solution with web frontend for kerberos/LDAP for controlling which software to remove or push to computers. Don't remember the name of neither of those software... 😜

[@fourdotsYT]

Cool. I don't know much about it, probably never need it. But as a dev I'd seen the admins use it for our network. Might have been Landscape. Looked browser based, but really cool. But since Chris made a video on Windows server, I thought maybe a comparison between linux alternatives would be in order, contrasting windows. The good, bad and ugly. Then later maybe a later deeper dive into each of the good ones. Otherwise people might have to go find that on another channel, I guess ;-)

[@jeffjordan3806]

I use two Windows servers 2016 to hold up the right side of my desk in the server room. They are not plugged in.

[@cgme7076]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[@sleipnir7446]

Very interesting point of view. I'm also looking forward for Linux solutions to get rid of AD and GPOs.

[@WeedMIC]

Reminds me AD was windoze attempt to copy Novell's NDS. Now Novell is Suse and AD still is unstable :D

[@AndersJackson]

Ad and GPO is basically. KERBEROS. LDAP. Distributed file system (SMB). Skript. So, use Kerberos/LDAP and something like chef, cfengine or salt. Distributed file systems use NFS. Yes, SMB/CIF are also available and slow.

[@sturmbreakers7817]

Anders Jackson SMB is not slow especially with with multichannel

[@AndersJackson]

@@sturmbreakers7817 compared to other file sharing protocol, Yes it is.

[@mdd1963]

The L-3 factory in Greenville, TX, went totally Linux years ago; all LDAP!

[@timothygibney159]

You forget to mention executives and their silly freebusy to set meetings in Outlook. Without it the CEO will always say no to leaving Windows. Executives love Outlook and their precious archive pst folders

[@vhmns]

Hey Chris, if you were to create an entire small/medium business environment entirely on Linux, which distro(s) would you use for server and desktops, and why?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

fedora for desktop and centos for servers... Centos instead of RHEL just because I'm cheap. Fedora/Centos are extremely reliable and security is their top priority. If money was no object and you required support swap CentOS for RHEL ;) (RHEL = Red Hat Enterprise Linux)

[@RyanTosh]

@@ChrisTitusTech Where would you rank Debian variations like Ubuntu Server in terms of server Linux?

[@AndersJackson]

I would go for Skole Linux. 😜

[@downburst3236]

@@ChrisTitusTech it largely depends on what distro you are familiar with. I would think for people new to Linux a better approach might be Mint or Ubuntu for Desktop, and Ubuntu or Debian for servers. Redhat/Centos packages are often too stale and Fedora is too bleeding edge. Debian/Ubuntu is a more happy middle. I remember compiling GCC 4.4.3, Python 5 and Python 6 RPM packages for a beowulf cluster a client had. They were running latest RHEL (5.1) at the time so had GCC 4.1.2 and Python 4 only, but every other distro had these already.

[@chesterhackenbush]

Ubuntu (LTS variant) or Debian would suit your needs. Desktop for the former, with Debian as the server. Although both could easily fulfil either function. In point of fact it would be easier if you chose a single distro from a networking and stability standpoint

[@matthewconrad7400]

Hey Chris! I really liked this video, could you make more videos about M$ products alternatives like FreeIPA, OpenLDAP, etc? Thanks 👍

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Certainly

[@fu886]

I take it a bit differently: 1. .net development heavily relies on Microsoft infrastructure especially when it comes down to integrating with security database integration(development for one group implement both in AD Level, sharepoint and exchange). 2. manageability in larger scale giving a more wholesome solution to a business which make it easier to manage in terms of enterprises and outsourcing. as far as i aware in linux administration things are more fragmented and it could be less obvious how to combine several systems. 3. due to a platform being more used it lead that there is bigger base supporting it from past usage and active people who can support it. it also means it is more well known to third parties and there is bigger place as result for third parties tools . 4. hard to migrate from existing systems. while possible it often not economical to migrate the servers and in other cases doesn't worth the hassle the 2nd and third reasons it is also why there is less adoption of linux for general application, it is more manual and not necessarily as discovered for general application as windows. It is a vicious feedback loop(that is a self-justifying system) but it is how technology adoption operate and can be seen in why industries shy away from changing existing standards or giving alternative standards.

[@sillonbono3196]

One of the issues with Windows in general is that "Windows is best at solving windows problems" if one gets out of the mentality that Linux has to solve stuff you need to do in Windows environments in the exact same way Windows does it, suddenly you find solutions for everything. Puppet, rsync + scripts, and even good old "ssh host cmd" can help to reproduce GPO's for Linux workstations. On the I need to run some Windows desktops front, you can use Samba 4.x it has both AD and GPO's that you administer using the Windows Remote Admin Tools from a windows computer, just like you would do on regular AD. The only thing I struggle with to replace is the Exchange calendaring and collaboration tools, Postfix + Dovecot do a terrific job as a super performant email server, but regarding the calendaring and collaboration things, polls, meeting requests, tasks and the like are Missing.

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Chris. Some Canadian federal offices still use COBOL.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

HAHA... damn that is older than me.

[@tomspencer1364]

A few days ago I was watching simulations of tornados coded in FORTRAN and run on a supercomputer. But that probably makes more sense than using COBOL.

[@jeffherdzina6716]

@@ChrisTitusTech Oklahoma Unemployment securities commission still use COBAL.

[@Jr-hv1ct]

HI Chris, great video . Have a question what would you use to manage linux desktops if you were to go all linux environment?

[@SavvyNik]

Familiarity.... that's why. They need to branch out :) can't beat free (LINUX)

[@julz19]

Support as well, small businesses (mostly) can't build it's own team or doesn't plan to maintain their servers, and RedHat isn't free either.

[@SavvyNik]

​@@julz19 Yeah true. Support is good and if your going the paid route I'd at least investigate some cheaper options than Microsoft ^^

[@gilbes1139]

Linux is free if your time is worthless. Unfortunately, IT staff doesn't work for free.

[@julz19]

@@gilbes1139 Yep .. Running a business isn't a pet project where you devote 80% of your time maintaining servers

[@AndersJackson]

@@julz19 so why using MS servers?

[@cr0ft-2k]

Yeah, inexperienced admins especially create gigantic group policy objects and cram everything in there. I mean, there's a sweet spot somewhere in there on how much you split that out, too many rules can affect loading times, and of course you should disable the part that isn't relevant (either the computer settings or user settings, depending on what you're doing). I had to sort one such situation out myself. And they had also set it so that restrictions that should only take place on specific computers happened on *all* computers. Terminal servers and laptops should *not* have the same GPO's... it was pretty bad. But it's hard to live without group policy, as you say, if you have Windows clients. As in, almost undoable. And right now, windows clients are the norm.

[@pavlospilakoutas]

Being using and still use GPOs for simple things, force a wallpaper, disable usb usage, map drives etc. And i have it per department. Usb GPO for accounting department is separate from the one that is assigned for management. I've being wondering, why cant a man just export all that work and import it on a new system, and i dont just mean servers. Pcs as well. I made the config and when i have to rebuilt a pc i have to do it all over again. Doesnt happen often but its a pain. As far as file sharing, couldnt agree more with what you said but hey, not my equipment. I just work on it. For some reason companies feel more legitimate paying licences for servers, stations, users. They kind of like it. When they see that you are using linux, you are some kind of a weirdo even though their web server, ftp server and mail server run on CentOs. Being looking at proxmox for VM and thinking of giving it a shot. Ever used it? It would be cool if you did and know your way around to make a video about it. All of my VMs now run on Hyper-V. Thinking of experimenting a bit on that. Built a pydio server just to see how its done Btw, windows need IIS if you want to run a windows ftp server. Win 10 as well

[@kawker]

What Linux cert would you go for?

[@thesullivanstreetproject]

Sam H great question!

[@MurangShaBu_MahalNaBiGas]

How about red hat?

[@sonofage]

U agree with the GPO setup. My current company does the bad way , one or two gpos for everything...I tried to suggest them to change it to something more sustainable and they outright rejected it...

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Get what you can from that place and use it as a stepping stone. The person in charge is a moron for knowingly doing that. I don't mind when someone doesn't know something but I have zero tolerance for willful ignorance.

[@xalz8538]

what are the clouds made of?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Other people's computers ;)

[@WeedMIC]

@@ChrisTitusTech even azure is linux b/c m$ gave up trying to get their network products to scale

[@Eimantasks]

well, I am new to servers, still, haven't decided which ones to start with, this video was a piece of good information to stumble upon, thank you!

[@igorthelight]

Microsoft itself ditched Windows Server for one of the Linux distros for their Azure servers. Google "Azure Linux"

[@Eimantasks]

@@igorthelight God damn dude, that is insane, I was not aware, thanks!

[@igorthelight]

@@Eimantasks :-)

[@bofollbring7751]

ZFS is not based on BSD (Free or otherwise). One could argue that Solaris (System V Release 4) had the original BSD as part of it's base (The other two were System V and Xenix.), but the BSD releases we know today (OpenBSD and FreeBSD) are derivatives of the original BSD code. ZFS was created by SUN Microsystems. They also releases an open source license of it with the OpenSolaris. This was later removed when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems. The open source version of ZFS has been ported to many OS versions such as Linux, MacOS and BSD. It's now maintained as OpenZFS. I run both Solaris and Linux platforms using ZFS, and I can easily say that the Solaris version of ZFS if far more stable and functional than the OpenZFS based ports.

[@DigBipper188]

As someone who screws with Windows server 2012R2 setting things up to learn about them I can confirm... *GPOs ARE A PAIN IN THE HECKIN' ARSE!!*

[@Xeno_Bardock]

Is there Group Policy alternative with GUI on Linux?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Anisible is the closest thing we have in Linux.

[@AndersJackson]

@@ChrisTitusTech no. There are other. Like salt and cfengine. They can be controlled by LDAP and secured by Kerberos. Same technic behind LDAP. Even web gui if you want.

[@HarmonicaMustang]

The way I see it, you can save on man-power to maintain a Windows Server environment as it's not a difficult system to maintain (most of the time), but your savings go to licensing. On Linux, you save on server software (I mean, 90% is free), but you pay a lot more for sysadmins who need to know their way around such system. I'm happy to maintain my Linux workstation because it's a machine for my sole use, but I wouldn't feel as confident in maintaining a Linux server. Troubleshooting in Windows is easier since 99% of issues are caused by updates, which you can identify and research (I have a Microsoft Offenders list above my desk with the latest troublemakers). To troubleshoot Linux, it takes a vast amount of knowledge about the kernel and operating system; far greater than what a typical desktop Linux user needs to know about their system. Admins with such knowledge and experience are not easy to come by, and they're definitely not cheap. You don't have to be a genius to maintain a Windows server, and the learning curve is so much gentler compared to Linux. But if you're willing to learn and are brave, you can achieve far greater feats on Linux.

[@yvrelna]

I'd perhaps phrase it differently: You can't do anything about 99% of the troubles you have on Windows, except to wait for the next update and hope that it will be fixed then. In Linux, because the system is open source, information on the details of what exactly is causing problems is much easier to come by, and because the system is so open for hacking, you'll often be tempted to just apply those hacks for your system rather than waiting for updates. You can manage Linux system like Windows, by hiring a sysadmin that's kinda dumb and uninterested in doing deep troubleshooting/debugging or who have great self restraints from doing so, so they don't start trying to dig into problems.

[@chempranav]

Only for AD. 2nd reason- Hyper-V is quite user friendly and feature rich too compared to kvm & others. (Very small biz size >5 users case)

[@lepatenteux592]

Hey Chris, I have a question for you... Hope you can answer or make a video about it... First-off, I love the fact that an hardcore Microsoft Admin/User is even attempting what you are doing... Keep on the good work, it is worth it! Here is an intro, I was a backup admin on Active Directory for a year, and now, a full system admin on Azure AD. (The one included with business essential licences) The company is fully O365 integrated, with Sharepoint and everything... We are using O365 services to their limits (and have found many!). Microsoft being Microsoft, they always change the rules and we loose functionalities on a weekly basis... Also, as a side note, I manage the complete Microsoft infrastructure and don't Own a Windows computer... I do everything on Linux! The company is making a slow turn (powered by me!) in the direction of Free and Open Source solutions. Namely, we are slowly switching the dev team to Linux desktop because The dev environment is a nightmare on Windows and WSL... Here comes the question: Azure AD, Sharepoint, O365 etc. makes it sooooo easy to manage users that I am spoiled! What would you use to build a business based on Linux? For Groups, User Management, Authentication, etc... Basically, I want to be able to deploy new users in the blink of an eye, Like on Azure (auto-deploy users environments) and be able to lock users in or out in a click (or command) Like Azure permits... We are slowly deploying web services on docker containers on a swarm... So far it has been great, but it does not help with the desktop apps etc. Thanks for your input.

[@ДмитрийБезбородкин-ж1м]

In post soviet space windows servers are used mostly for one thing: accounting/ERP with access through rdp. Sometimes for hyper-v (what an awful experience) and active directory... and nothing more really.

[@Handskemager]

The Oracle OS with ZFS is not based on FreeBSD. It’s a SVR4 UNIX system, It’s called Solaris (SUN Microsystems made it)

[@danielbr92]

Thanks for helping me with my assignment

[@adiflorense1477]

5:08 Sir, that's wonderful. I want to ask why a company needs a windows server to manage printers, instead of using the printer directly?

[@alessandroceloria]

Remote printing, pooling, credentials and access management, usage counters and statistics, the list goes on

[@aurora2319]

I know you're not kine on Windows any more (and so do I) but you made a very honest and objective video as to why businesses still use Windows servers

[@muhammadwaqarsiddiqui6731]

Can you create a windows server 2016 course playlist? If you have time.. Like how to install windows server,ADDS,DNS etc..

[@jeffmyers]

Not sure why you separate AD and GPO. They are really one in the same. Not sure what size and types of businesses you deal with but IIS, which I hate with a passion, its very widely used to support ASP.NET applications. But the number one reason companies use windows is vertical market applications. I believe this is changing rapidly as software vendors are moving to hosted but established brick and mortar businesses still rely heavily on windows only applications built for their line of business.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Well said... But I believe we speak our reality. I will never acknowledge it's existence.

[@hamidmazuji]

chris, please tell me why one site is telling me i can install windows server on any computer, while my motherboard manufacturer is telling me only windows 10 and rhl is supported and not windows server

[@janegerrard1073]

A lot of small business deployments seem to come when they pick an ERP or accounts system that's fully locked into Microsoft (windows server, msSQL, AD). Between that and the army of consultant/resellers convincing them Linux is hobby stuff and MS is 'the real thing' they've got most SMEs.

[@xaxoon363]

Just to mention the most popular ones: Exchange, Sharepoint, SQL, WSUS...within an OnPremise environment. I'm also curious how Linux could impelement its own Active Directory solution but maybe it is not going to happen in the near future. I like to use Windows for work-related things and for gaming but I'm a big Linux fan since several years. ;)

[@dominik6019]

Now its a thing

[@JJFlores197]

Yeah I'm curious to know what a Linux equivalent to AD and group policies is.

[@somethingelse401]

What is the Linux version of group policy?

[@Physics072]

Curious why do do prefer 2016 over 2019. 2016 had that patch issue where it took forever to do updates. 2019 fixed that.

[@WXLM-MorganNicole619]

There are application specific servers (MSSQL, Microsoft CRM, etc.) that still need it

[@iyaanazeez8989]

God I hate windows concepts

[@manoffire7609]

So do I. God

[@SS-ql7bt]

the healthcare realm still uses windows server heavily!! And iis!! At least that’s my experience with a lot of major hospitals

[@alessandroceloria]

Oh my god I can get behind windows but dear lord not IIS!

[@screamingiraffe]

You keep confusing Group Policies, preferences and the actual objects. The idea is correct but it's being stated incorrectly

[@Nimitz_oceo]

Very interesting point, the question is while on the server it looks like no one is using windows server like they used to, on the background things are still pretty much the same. Microsoft worked very hard to facilitate integration and migration of many of the old legacy application to cloud or containers. But also you will be surprised to learn that many of the big enterprises still use file old school ntfs for file services and storage, although now there’s an added bonus which works pretty good, file deduplication released since 2016 has made things a bit easy and cheap azure back ups means fault tolerant is easily achievable and sysAdmins can now sleep peacefully

[@Floturcocantsee]

Before this video even starts I'm gonna guess Active Directory and Exchange

[@fallsdp]

Please do a new comprehensive series on ZFS vs hardware raid vs software raid.

[@katrinabryce]

ZFS is software raid. One big advantage of ZFS and I suppose to a lesser extent other software raid implementations is that you can put the drives into another computer with completely different hardware, mount them, and it will work. My ZFS pool is about 10 years old now. I think only about two of the original 9 drives are still in it, and I moved it into another computer when the motherboard died. I've never had to use the backup ever.

[@DDBAA24]

I am so glad you turned down this road , since we're on the topic of windows server .. A video about creating VM pools and deploying the virtual desktops to the network, that would be great. I have not much experience with Windows Server and Hyper-V but I am interested in it, if not for anything else the fact that HyperV allows you to dynamically allocate Memory which is pretty huge. For everyone else I am not talking about storage I am talking about dynamically allocated RAM . I think it would be a useful video , even if someone wanted to mess around and pump out a few desktops sharing a powerful machines resources to less powerful machines for a home lab. The storage configuration is where is gets a little foggy for me. How to setup persistence locally and or across the network thinclients/fatclients NFS/SAN all the good stuff. I know I've asked a bunch of times for you to do this within Linux , something rhel based since your active in that community (rather it be Debian) , but if it has to be windows I'll take it 👍👌💪

[@padraigr9305]

Chris, you mention Linux Desktop as an alternative for GPO's ? Could you elaborate ?

[@bulcub]

Windows servers are good at Hyper-v, AD, DNS, and you are right about GPO's & Firewall Rules! there are a lot of windows admins that do not practice their craft and use best practices! Powershell basically to me is open source mgmt without looking at a gui! But again their are better Linux Alternatives!

[@erwindee7384]

Would you kindly name some? I'm trying to learn Linux system administration. So far, what I understand is: Kerberos is a good alternative to AD Red Hat Ansible is a good alternative to GPO's KVM is great compared to Hyper-V I still got nothing on print servers Your comment is the first time I'm thinking about DNS and Firewall

[@potluckfishing]

Many admins still use IIS for websites

[@fulconandroadcone9488]

We use iis for a production web site today

[@crichisthebest]

What about Windows Deployment Services, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) or System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

WDS/MDT I have no issues with... System Center can go take a flying leap off the tallest cliff in my opinion. I still have nightmares of using this in the botched Microsoft Project (Essential Business Server 2008) which used SCCM extensively and to great disaster imo.

[@downburst3236]

@@ChrisTitusTech SCCM uses WDS/MDT under the hood. It also uses WSUS to push updates. Yes, SCCM is much more complex, and in some ways it feels unnecessarily so. But it is extremely powerful and when configured correctly it gives you amazing control.

[@Euph0rik9]

So what's wrong with DFS? The latest iterations of Win svr (16/19) are solid with their replication topologies. How would ZFS handle file and share permissions (any better) in an AD environment? And what about syncing these ZFS repositories across different sites?

[@learningbird9940]

Any chance of a video (or 2 or 3) talking about Chef, Puppet and SaltStack as viable alternatives to MS Server GPOs?

[@Justin-ng4zg]

Cabonite evault is a windows app for backup... so that is why we store on windows servers.

[@oxomax]

Your content is so legit and high quality

[@DandyDon1]

The licen$ing per CPU core requirement with Microsoft Server and a licensing requirement of at least 16 cores is starting to make something like Red Hat Enterprise more attractive.

[@DandyDon1]

Windows Server 2016 does have a Windows 10 interface... What gripes me is, there was only three years before a newer version of Windows Server was introduced? What happened to 5 to 7 years for server software? By the time the work most of the bugs out, a newer version will pop up, literally.

[@DandyDon1]

..forcing Windows Server 2016 to be slated for retirement too soon.

[@mdd1963]

RHEL’s minimum support contract is about $750-ish ( annually) per OS instance….; actually more expensive than WS2022 ?)

[@kjakobsen]

I love Linux, and make a living with Windows server. Here is my 5 cents: 1. Active Directory and GPOs. Seriously Chris, how on Earth would you manage 50+ users / workstations without them? 2. The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, either by it selv og together with WDS or even SCCM. 3. The WIM / ESD image format together with the dism tool. 4. Exchange + Outlook is just a real strong combo.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Agree with most those points, I hate SCCM though... It's the devil. Getting Outlook away from users is sooo hard, there is nothing that comes close to it. I absolutely hate almost every linux mail client... except for Hiri which is ok, but I still haven't found anything close to ole Outlook.

[@kjakobsen]

@@ChrisTitusTech But having an corporate OS image, for PXE deployment on hundreds of PC's is sweet. And being able to inject new drivers and updates into the images is quite nice too.

GPO < RSYNC + custom config Files. Also how does linux farms are managed without GPO ....

[@BrianThomas]

What certificated do you have

[@GTBeean]

I'm not super familiar with web hosting, but we are using IIS for two things: Chocolatey and a bespoke company intranet written in C#. What would be a better way to host those services? Edit: I should note that the intranet also uses SQL server, but I believe that can be run in a container (drawbridge?) on Linux?

[@downburst3236]

I would suggest Azure. You can spin up the components you need without the need to manage the servers behind these: SQL instances, IIS servers, load balancers. And if you need it even Linux VMs - they partner with Canonical for Ubuntu images.

[@danielkrajnik3817]

3:55 probably sixty? are you planning to freeze yourself at some point in-between

[@TegridyMadeGames]

Will you please do a (honest) video about how Linux does get viruses? Also what is the difference between a Linux distro and Android?:)

[@svettnabb]

GPOs is what makes windows administration great. Windows is a dream to administrate when you have thousands of endpoints.

[@mememoons]

Man I have created my own SMTP provider on Windows Server 2016 about a while ago, then it works very well and I don't have any problem except the delivery status, I got the emails into the JUNK folder. I asked a friend to solve this problem but he told me that I need to set the SPF, RDNS and MX-Records to get a high rate of email delivery, I hope to find me a right solution for this issue :)

[@nicetomeetugaming7024]

Thanks!

[@OldNorsebrewery]

Zentaya is Linux and have active directory import from MS

[@beautifulworldikr]

For the licensing fees

[@MrDesibuoy]

So Question, I understand the need for business but why do you need Windows server on things like a Dedicated server? I don't have any users, it's mostly for my own use, I'll be installing basic stuff like Chrome, probably just that.

[@naudos]

we just migrated our old fileserver (Server 2008) to Server 2019 via file replication. Is this really that bad? We use the fileserver so users get their own space where they can put their files. And also other Shares like "Groupshares". We often have the Problem that our login script fails to connect shares from the fileserver to the user's client pc. There isnt even an error message or anything. But thats pretty much it. Is there a better way to do this?

[@ac11dc110]

what is file replication?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

File replication between branch offices using Windows Server... Never a fun venture when using only the built in Windows Server tools.

[@johnbourke7528]

I work in information technology and use server 2012 on my two servers. I really like windows servers so user friendly.

[@The-bashing-zone]

Hi all. I'm young IT Admin. We have about 80 clients windows laptops in call center. Our company sits on Windows 2012r2. I'm planing to replace them with windows 2022 standard with GUI and run on it 2x hyper v VMs with windows server 2022 standard. One for AD, GPOs, and the other for SQL server and Internet faced interfaces. Is it good idea to go with Windows serwer 2022? Or would you go with something else? I was also considering full cloud but in 8 years time on-prem is cheaper to run.

[@jmm1233]

Red Hat Ftw nothing beats a good red hat for enterprise servers

[@jeffherdzina6716]

Amen, Brother.

[@AndreasBlochberger]

Isn't Ansible a good alternative for GPOs?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Nope, it has some functionality, but nothing near what GPOs gives.

[@jordantekelenburg]

I still have to use iis because the software we use is written in .net

[@jimg.9198]

What about DNS and DHCP?

[@jeanyuan9852]

Hi, Chris ! Nihao (Chinese salutation most common) !

[@phiomiam]

What market share LINUX/Widow :) in servers sector?

[@Scheidel21]

My company does .Net development and so our clients mostly use Windows, and sites we create are still hosted by iis either locally or in azure. Until .net core comes closer to parity with Windows .net framework I see a lot of software and custom stuff still being windows based. That said there is this contingent of people who are pretty convinced MS is heading towards a Linux kernel based OS. Ultimately this seems to me like it would be good for Linux.

[@harrytsang1501]

When you have hundreds of Windows clients all logging into a centralised domain, do you really have a choice?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

There are migrations you can do... however, the bigger the environment... the bigger the challenge.

[@jeffmyers]

You dont have a choice. The main problem is auditors. if you tell him anything other than AD get ready to explain every little detail of how you manage network security and have it scrutinized to death.

[@AndersJackson]

Yes, it is basically LDAP and Kerberos. That is what MS uses, and CIF for file sharing. And of course a UI on top of that. And yes, there are good GUI for admin LDAP, Kerberos and file servers from a GUI from others than MS. There have been thousands of Linux/Unix users managed centralized, we have that here in the University. We still uses mostly MS sollutions, but all users can log in and use the Linux accounts and MS Windows and OSX machines with the same account. Yes, the file server isn't MS machines, they are real file servers. :-)

[@bulwinkle]

There is always a choice even if it's just walk away.

[@victor.ananias]

"No one uses IIS for websites anymore." Tell that for the company I work for

[@jeffherdzina6716]

I can tell you that the U.S. Postal service still uses IIS. Trust me...

[@dean6125]

council authorities in UK do