• long_chicken_boat
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    10 months ago

    does Windows Server Essentials comes with a desktop GUI? Can you install Steam and things like that like you’d normally do in Windows?

    I’m happy with Linux, but my brother who is a gamer has Windows but he’s annoyed af by updates and the AI nonsense. This seems like a perfect solution.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Yes it is regular Windows but stripped of all the consumer apps like TikTok and CandyCrush. It has one extra app: Server Manager (A GUI like Control Panel with buttons to disk manager, device manager etc) which loads at startup and is easily disabled. Under the hood the registry has changes that tell Windows to give background tasks equal resources to the foreground app. This is needed for server use for smoother multitasking like Linux, but at the expense of a few FPS in games. You can edit the registry in regular Windows to act like Server and vice versa. They use the same kernel.

      • Cannonhead2@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        This is intriguing. Does it still try to force you to use a Microsoft account? Would make no sense for a server version, but you never know with microsoft’s bullshit sometimes.