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On 01/01/13 10:52, Philip Whateley wrote: > http://tinyurl.com/bh9x98d > > Phil > Expect that number to ramp massively as soon as all new PCs are sold exclusively with Windows 8 pre-installed: it always takes a little while after a new version bump from MS before the general crowd, distinct from journos, techies and early adopters, start to use it in any large number. Windows 8 is actually pretty decent - just pretend all that "the interface previously known as Metro" crap isn't there, ignore the installers pleading to sign in with a Microsoft Hotmail based ID and create a regular local or domain account, install Classic Shell and you're away. Under the hood it's just Win7 with some minor re-architecting and a bit of spit and polish. Server 2012 is a genuinely good release in the increasingly reliable Windows Server family (2003 and 2008/2008R2 weren't bad either). Sure, 2012 is expensive with the inevitable MS money grab (they're fiddling with the licensing costs for CALs and amongst other things, restricting end users ability to install Exchange on low end setups, necessitating further upgrades and hence more licensing costs, etc) but it's a really solid offering. I for one am slightly bemused that after over a decade of Microsoft apologists slating Linux/Unix for requiring arcane invocations at a command prompt to accomplish anything, Microsoft themselves now recommend in many instances that Server 2012 should be installed in "core" mode (i.e., without a GUI) and administered via remote powershell scripting which is as close to a volte face as you can imagine. Brilliantly, the powershell scripting language, whilst very powerful and capable, is at least as obtuse as any *nix shell or scripting language you'd care to mention... Mixed messages from our friends at MS as per usual. Earlier I saw some users say they were either tied to Windows as their main OS or still had to maintain a separate box or dual boot partition on Windows for compatibility reasons: may I suggest if you can't get your required apps to work under wine, switch your Windows install to a virtual one and just run it as a VM when required? A clean Win7 install will happily sit in a VM configured with only 20Gb of sparse disk allocation and 2Gb RAM assigned, even 1Gb is fine as long as your required app isn't Photoshop or something. Unless your main PC is the biggest piece of crap ever surely you'll have dual 64bit cores and 4Gb+ RAM which is easily enough to host a Windows VM on a Linux box. Regards -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq