If you are not one, imagine you are a Windows server administrator of at least one Windows Server 2022 machine for a moment.
You have been installing your security patches, and the machine reboots. The downtime is significantly longer than expected. I don’t know what a Windows admin would do while installing updates. Regardless, when you’re done, multiple onoseconds ensue.
More closely resembling an onohour, you come to terms with the fact that the server has been unwillingly upgraded to Windows Server 2025. If that was not bad enough, you owe Microsoft the fees for licensing as if you chose to upgrade.
What benefits does Windows Server have over GNU/Linux when issues like this can happen whenever? Windows had an issue earlier this year where computers running CrowdStrike Falcon were effectively struck offline, grinding many things to a halt. Should aiming for this to happen again be our goal?
Since the update got out, it feels almost like Microsoft either missed that there was a problem, or nobody did quality checks on it to make sure that they did not just release a bad update. For how critical most of the machines Windows Server runs on is, this is no small matter.
If your company or organization uses Windows, but doesn’t necessarily need to, it may be a good time to move away from using it now. I’ve got Debian running on aperture, and it’s been superior to what Windows was on the same machine. Even though there aren’t other users on it at the moment, there hopefully will be eventually, and when that time comes, it would be very helpful to use a multi-user system like GNU/Linux. If anything, at least Debian GNU/Linux doesn’t have CALs and running an e-mail server doesn’t cost even more extra money!
Consider upgrading, but to GNU rather than Windows Server 2025, or later if you were already upgraded. You’ll see the benefits of switching sooner or later. I’m glad I stopped using Windows Server when I did!