Windows Server 2008 as a Workstation OS - Workstation Facelift, continued
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Everyone knows that server operating systems prioritize server applications and services that are running in the background. The OS cannot allow these to become unresponsive or lag. But in the case of a workstation OS, you aren’t running power-hungry daemons; you want priority on the software you’re running in the foreground—the ones with which you are working. Let’s change that prioritizing setting now. Look below.
Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> System -> Advanced -> Advanced / Performance -> Settings, Advanced -> Processor Scheduling
As you can guess, we want to select the "Programs" checkbox. Moving on, you also have the settings for Visual Effects. Tune these according to your preference.
There is another feature that is called SuperFetch. It’s a new technology that was introduced with Windows Vista. It “intelligently” caches your most frequently used applications so they load up much faster. Windows attempts to guess which apps you are going to use and when. It sounds weird, but it helps—more often than not, at least.
Fire up your Registry Editor (Run -> “regedit”) and find the following registry path.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementPrefetchParameters
Once you’ve found the above key, you need to create two new DWORD entries: EnablePrefetcher and EnableSuperfetch. Set both of them to value 3. Once this step is done, you can find the SuperFetch service within the “services.msc” snap-in.
In the case of workstation machines, you may want multiple profiles or to enable auto-logon functions as well. Should you want to add another user profile, Start -> Run -> “control userpasswords2” and set up your new user. We recommend placing the users within the Administrators group so that you don’t need to mess with the policies later on. If you choose Standard, the user cannot reboot/shutdown the machine.
Of course, that can be modified within the policy management snap-in, or the user can later be placed within the Administrators group as well. Enabling auto-logon isn’t that tough either—at the same window where you’ve added the other user profile you can "uncheck" the “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer” function. After this, select one of the users, and auto-logon is enabled on it.
Wireless Networking is hardly ever required in the case of servers, but that changes when you’re using a server OS for a workstation. For example, the author of this article set up Windows Server 2008 R2 on a laptop. Wireless networking is required in some cases. Fire up the Server Manager, Add Features, and pick “Wireless LAN Service.” Once you’re there, you might also want to set up Windows Search as a new server role.
Universal Plug ‘n’ Play (UPnP) can be found within the “services.msc” as well. If you need this service, set its start up mode to Automatic. Actually, there are two instances; these are called: “SSDP Discovery” and “UPnP Device Host.”
As a final step we suggest messing with group policies (local policies in our case) to further customize specific aspects of your operating system. Launch this snap-in with the command Run -> “gpedit.msc.” For example, this is the place where you can disable the strong password enforcement policy (Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Account Policies). Aside from this, there are hundreds of others.
Should you want to install the Vista Sidebar look here. The same goes for custom gadgets.
Next: Final Thoughts >>
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