Prime95 and the Windows Server family

[ixfd64]

A while ago, I mentioned that I was hoping to acquire a home server some time in the future. Does anyone know if Prime95 will have any issues running on the following operating systems?

• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Home Server

I know that it's not possible to run Prime95 as a service in the newer versions of Windows; for example, setting Prime95 to "Start at Bootup" on Vista will cause problems, although the "Start at Logon" option will work on Windows 7. Does anyone know which is the case for the OSes I mentioned?

[mdettweiler]

Regarding running Prime95 as a service, 2003 is effectively the server version of XP, and 2008 of Vista, so I would expect them to behave similarly to their desktop counterparts. (That is, you can run Prime95 as a service with no problems in 2003, but in 2008 you can only use "start at logon".) Windows 7, of course, doesn't yet have a server counterpart. And as for Home Server, I think that's based on 2008. (There may have been earlier versions of Home Server based on 2003, though; if that's the case, you should be able to tell since the user interface will have more of an XP feel, whereas 2008-based OSes would look more like Vista in Windows Classic mode.)

Note that there may be other idiosyncracies specific to these server OSes (and not present in their desktop counterparts) that I'm not aware of; I've never personally used any of them with Prime95, and don't have any experience whatsoever with Home Server.

Also note that even if your OS doesn't allow Prime95 to run as a service the "normal way", you can still use ntprime as a service, or install Prime95 as a service per this method. Neither will allow you to interact with the Prime95 interface while it's running as a service (since that's the security measure introduced in Vista that doesn't let it "normally" run as a service), but this may or may not be a big deal in your case.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by ixfd64

A while ago, I mentioned that I was hoping to acquire a home server some time in the future. Does anyone know if Prime95 will have any issues running on the following operating systems?

• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Home Server

I know that it's not possible to run Prime95 as a service in the newer versions of Windows; for example, setting Prime95 to "Start at Bootup" on Vista will cause problems, although the "Start at Logon" option will work on Windows 7. Does anyone know which is the case for the OSes I mentioned?

Prime95 works with Win Server 2008 R2. I don't have it in the C:\Program Files\ folder because of the UAE (increases speed) but everything works fine.

I have never checked the services options.

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

And as for Home Server, I think that's based on 2008. (There may have been earlier versions of Home Server based on 2003, though; if that's the case, you should be able to tell since the user interface will have more of an XP feel, whereas 2008-based OSes would look more like Vista in Windows Classic mode.

Windows Home Server, as it currently exists, is based on 2003. There is an upcoming version of WHS (formerly codenamed Vail, now called Windows 7 Home Server or Windows Home Server 2011) that's based on 2008. But from all accounts, they broke it badly in the beta, and broke it worse after the beta, so I'm not real keen on it.

I ran Prime95 no problem on WHSv1 for several years, it behaved as expected.

[PageFault]

It works fine with server 2003 enterprise edition and v25 simplifies the setup. With v24 I had to create a specific service for the second instance.

[Sloth]

Server 2008 R2 I thought was the server version of Windows 7.
Windows 7 is to Vista that 98SE was to 98. It is just that the Vista reputation that MS had to run away from it as fast as they could. It took 6 years to make Vista, but you think they came up with W7 in 18 months?

[James Heinrich]

Per "ver" at a cmd prompt:
* Vista is Windows 6.0
* Windows 7 is Windows 6.1
I hate marketing naming schemes.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

Per "ver" at a cmd prompt:
* Vista is Windows 6.0
* Windows 7 is Windows 6.1
I hate marketing naming schemes.

What the heck? I always assumed 7 would be 7.0. The fact that they're calling it 6.1 would make sense, though, considering that underneath, it's not that different from Vista...kind of like 98/98SE as Sloth mentioned. They touched up some of the rough spots, and made some rather flashy cosmetic changes to draw attention away from this. (Not that this is all bad...7 is kind of like what Vista should have been. Now if only they would put the non-cosmetic changes into a Vista SP3 and make it availalble as a free update...nah, why would they want to do that when they can sell 7 proper for $300 or whatever they're charging now?)

Though if I were them, I would have made the number 7.0 despite the changes being incremental...Windows 7 being version 6.1 is just plain stupid. Next thing you know, they'll make Windows 8 version 7.0...

@Sloth: Server 2008 (both original and R2) are based on Windows Vista. Presumably, a 7-based server OS will come out within the next couple of years as either Server 2011 or Server 2012.