I'm downloading Windows Server 2008 RC0 (Release Candidate 0) at the moment so that I can see how it responds to some "tweaking" to get it to run as a desktop OS.

I haven't played with it at all so have no idea what kernel it's based on, but I suspect it would be Server 2003 with some enhancements. I may be wrong, but I can't imagine that it's based on Windows Vista?

Watch this space! I'll post how it goes and whether it's at all possible, as soon as I have it installed.

Hey Graham,

As you're probably aware, I was recently doing some intensive testing of Server 2008. The installation smacks of Vista, as does the general operation of the OS itself so, unless MS have slapped some Vista-esque updates and tweaks to it, from what I saw of it, 2008 is more likely to be based around a Vista-equivalent core than it is Server 2003.

From what i have seen (& bugged) there are several refrences to Vista still lingering in the Server2008 help & support information.

Early into Lh Server it also had a Vista (clone) Welcome Center too.

Alright here's a few hints that I have acquired from running it as my desktop OS for the first few days (I'm doing this from memory so I'll double check when I get home)

First things to do.

On the "welcome" screen goto Add Features.

Install
Desktop Experiance
Quality Audio Video (something like that)
and Wireless LAN

Then restart, and enable Areo Glass. Double check your Sound/Audio Devices panel to make sure Audio is fully accelerated. Check the Display settings to make sure the Video is fully Accelerated. And then check DXdiag to see if that's all working. It also has DirectX 10 as well :D

Its based on Vista SP1.... which is based off of Server 2003.

Thank you very much for the input guys I'm faced with one small problem right now...can't login to MSDN to get the product key although I got in fine last night to download the iso. I'll keep trying...seems there's a problem with the site

EDIT: Got it

since i have same network problem i have in vista i will say it is more vista than server 03. sort of vista running server 2003, but again it is still BETA sofware.

it is shame though, i do not have time to test it out

Well I got it installed and was quite surprised to find audio enabled by default.

It is indeed based on Vista but I must say I like the "cut down" feel of it as many of the "eye candy" features are missing.

I need to find, download and install Vista drivers for my graphics card though (7900GS 512 MB) before I can enable D3D and aero.

Otherwise I quite like the look and feel of it Here's a screenie of the desktop. It's the only Theme available but I like it.

So far I'm pretty impressed I must say. No UAC by default and there's a ton of stuff one can enable or disable and that is not just on by default. I got IE7 sorted out so that IE ESC (Enhanced Security Configuration) is turned off...quite interesting to see just how much we normally let onto our systems when it's enabled but a bit of a pain adding everything to trusted sites, especially if one is not fully aware of what they all are.

Enabling aero was a cinch once I got decent drivers for my VGA installed. I see it's possible to enable the sidebar but apart from the clock and the CPU and RAM sidebar items I don't really have a use for it.

Still need to figure how to get rid of that annoying shutdown control screen. I tried gpedit.msc but can't find anything there. Guess I'll just have to dig a bit deeper to remember where I disabled that in Server 2003.

I think I won't have a problem getting ZoneAlarm and NOD32 installed but probably won't get around to doing that until the weekend.

Quite interesting that this includes SP1 and I wonder just how much of Vista SP1? Weird that MS is so tight lipped about Vista SP1 and we are all under NDA and cannot discuss it, but we are free to discuss SP1 in Server 2008.

It's great that the desktop wallpaper still shows Windows Code Name Longhorn

I've been using Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 32-Bit Edition RC0 as my main operating system now everyday for the past 10 days and am really happy with it.

It's sufficiently unlike Vista for me to like it

Both ZoneAlarm (free version) and NOD32 (paid version) work great.

Thats awesome. I am running it in VPC mode. I use the no-GUI version to mess around with CLI and web hosting. It is much faster than before. Kudos to MS for actually making a slim version like *nix.