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OsNews has a two page write-up on things that are annoying in the Windows Server 2003 product, and I must say it was an interesting read because I feel the same as the author in every single point mentioned.

Why must I have a media player on my server? And why are the codecs so important? How come just to install this media player, I have to reboot my server? Anyway, who out there is using WMP on their servers?

That does seem pretty funny having to install WMP on a server. There must be a reason for this, and we know servers can be used to host media content and games, etc.. Maybe microsoft uses media player to provide some necessary features? I can't see it being an oversight, but you never know.

Windows 2003 also locks down a number of things that make it more like a workstation. Things like Media Player are present, but things like IE and the GUI are locked down. Direct X was still there, of course, but turned off mostly. I dunno... I guess some of it makes sense. Media Player doesn't.

Really, you have to remember that this is kind of basically Windows XP with a bunch of server stuff added, most of which already existed in Windows 2000 server and advanced server. I dare say things like Media Player are coupled into the XP OS in a way that can't easily be removed without breaking at least something annoying.

If I was setting up an active directory domain controller right now, I think I would still install 2000 and put on all latest service packs, etc. But then, aren't we not getting a new version of IE (that is supposedly more secure) for 2000 and below, only for XP/2003? Hmmm, maybe I would just install 2003 and hope for the best.

2003 server works just fine, all you gotta do is ignore the "extra" stuff. if you don't feel like you need wmp don't use it, it's that simple.

To be honest, it wasn't really much different from Windows 2000 Advanced Server. It had the XP interface, and a few new wizards. There was some added functionality of course but nothing totally radical or especially cool. But its newer and more likely to be supported in future so I guess just go with it.

What I like with 2003 is the new IIS6, other than that I prefer 2000 Server...

The more extra stuff there is, the more likely are bugs and security problems.

IIS6 is nice, but to be honest I would be headed for Apache land (in Linux Country) for a web server now. IIS is easy to administer, though I guess.