back to article 'Feature-complete' Windows Server 2016 preview 5 lands

Microsoft has delivered another preview of Windows Server 2016 and says this effort is “feature-complete”, meaning this is still not final code but there won't be any new surprises the final version of the software. Technical Preview 5, available here, adds the option to install in Nano mode. That's Microsoft's slimmed down, …

  1. Da Weezil

    "The latter emphasises security by isolation – Microsoft wants you to have fine control over which VMs get to talk to which hosts and guests."

    Something wrong here.. Microsoft wants US to control over something? Sorry guys anything left on Redmond software is moving, I dislike the current *untrustworthy computing platform*, after the data slurping - including back porting it to older software - they have shown they are not to be trusted with anything.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      There's still a bit different between users that sign cheques for thousands and thousands (if not millions...) of dollars/euro/<other currency> for server operating systems and those who get them for free...

      Even Google may slurp less if you actually pay.

  2. HmmmYes

    I'll have a bash with my MSDN subs version.

    I was quite liking Windows Server. Peaked with WS2008R2.

    Just confusing GUI now.

    Still not sure about Powershell.

    You know the French joke about managing a country with 1000s of cheeses?

    I seem to have the same problem - admining WS with a 1000 versions of powershell.

    Look,s its shell FFS. Get the first version right and dont change the bastard.

    1. DasWezel
      Linux

      "Look,s its shell FFS. Get the first version right and dont change the bastard."

      Linux user who regrettably has to deal with Windows sometimes. Personally, found the later versions of powershell genuinely surprising in terms of the sheer power available. Actually in /some/ ways quite like the idea of return data being either formatted to screen or passed as an object to another function.

      No bloody clue to how use most of it without extensive googling though.

      1. kryptylomese

        Unix (shell) has a philosophy that everything is a file. The input and output of a Unix command can be accessed like a file. This makes chaining command really simple and reusing the output of one command by another is the power of the Unix shell.

        With Windows PowerShell, as far as I know, everything is an object. You can pass the result of a command to another as an object. This can be really powerful, but it does not have the simple concept of Unix.

        Windows simply does not have the objects that are the equivalents to the files in Linux. Windows cannot do what Linux can.

        Having said that, Powershell is useful for getting reports from VMware but the world appears to be moving to cloud which really is the land of Linux.

        1. azaks

          >> With Windows PowerShell, as far as I know, everything is an object. You can pass the result of a command to another as an object. This can be really powerful, but it does not have the simple concept of Unix.

          Greping, awking and seding your way through text output to pipe into the next command is the kind of "simple concept" that most IT people can do without. No doubt this was highly innovative in the 70's, but now it is just lame (except maybe to earn cred in a greybeard pissing contest).

          >> Windows simply does not have the objects that are the equivalents to the files in Linux.

          Wrong. You should have just stopped writing at "as far as I know"

          1. kryptylomese

            "Wrong. You should have just stopped writing at "as far as I know""

            LOL - You tell that to Microsoft:-

            https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee677578.aspx

            I guess you should have just stopped?

        2. seansaysthis

          I used both. Nothing is perfect. the UNIX shells were the inspiration for powershell. It's comes down to best tool for the job. I like powershell. Recent changes to decouple it from the version of Windows are welcome. I learned a lot from sed awk and Perl back in the day. Fact is that with desired state computing admins,spend less and less time logged into servers. I've played with nano. it's seriously retro interface reminded me of DOS. take everything on its merits.

  3. Sgt_Oddball

    Oh damn....

    And I was only getting round to migrating onto 2012r2 (not my choice to hold off so long but finally convinced the powers that be that a new bit of kit would be nice).

  4. nkuk

    I don't need to log in to Windows servers that much any more but I really, really hope they've got rid of the almost unusable "metro" start screen from Server 2012. I still have no idea how that UI got approved and released by Microsoft.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's enjoyable

    Windows Server 2016 TP5 as a Workstation. No metro fluff, telemetry turned off .. fun times.

    1. nkuk

      Re: It's enjoyable

      Thanks, that sounds much better, why Microsoft decided to put a badly designed tablet UI on a server I'll never know.

  6. JamesSmith1
    Facepalm

    Feature-Complete?

    Feature-Complete? One of the features that is supposed to be in Server 2016 which Microsoft have been touting for years was "Soft Restart" which still hasn't been implemented.. They had added the "/Soft" switch to the shutdown command but it doesn't do anything, a regular restart is still performed irregardless of the switch.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like