What Microsoft OS is best for business?
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AD can be used to remotely install programs and updates on a whole network of PC's, can it do fresh Windows installs?
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As @scottalanmiller mentioned, AD doesn't do those things, the add-on components do. Does Microsoft have tools that can deploy a Fresh OS to machines, yes it does, several in fact, and they are free. Windows Deployment Services, Microsoft Deployment Tools, etc. Of course they have paid tools, and the names have all changed since I used them, so I won't name any.
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But you really don't need MS tools for image creation.
You can build your base machine, sysprep it, then create an image copy of it using Clonezilla (FREE) or setup a FOG server.
With Clonezilla you can have a USB 3.0 drive, put your image on there and attach it to the new units when you need to reimage. I store my images on a network fileshare.
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@Mike-Ralston said:
AD can be used to remotely install programs and updates on a whole network of PC's, can it do fresh Windows installs?
AD can't. You can use GPO for that but not AD.
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Ahhhhhhhh, okay.
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Think of AD literally like a directory like a phone book or card catalogue. Other services go to AD and look things up like names, IDs, group membership and telephone number. All four of those are items stored in AD. Also stored in AD is your password. The only thing beyond just a directory lookup that AD provides is a password lookup in a secure way. It's still just a directory lookup, though. That's literally all that AD does. It's just a really neat, but actually quite basic, directory.
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Thanks for clarifying that, I thought it was quite different than it actually is.
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Everyone does. You'd be shocked how many long time IT pros can't separate AD and NTFS.
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So it's a common misunderstanding? Hmm...
@scottalanmiller Which version of Office do you prefer to work with? And is Libre Office decent alternate software? -
@scottalanmiller said:
Everyone does. You'd be shocked how many long time IT pros can't separate AD and NTFS.
OK that's a new one on me.
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@Mike-Ralston libre and OpenOffice are effectively identical and both very awesome. They match MS Office in all core functionality. Only very specialty features demand MS Office.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Everyone does. You'd be shocked how many long time IT pros can't separate AD and NTFS.
OK that's a new one on me.
Read any NAS discussion where someone says "AD integration", universally they mean NTFS ACLs. Everyone thinks that AD controls permissions and filesystems.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Mike-Ralston libre and OpenOffice are effectively identical and both very awesome. They match MS Office in all core functionality. Only very specialty features demand MS Office.
The functionality may be there, but the formatting sure isn't. If you have a ton of files already made in MS Office, you should definitely test many of them with the alternatives to ensure recreation isn't required. Also, if you share files .doc .xls files with outside companies, test, test, test to make sure you don't have formatting problems on their side.
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Ahhh. I've had a small amount of experience with LibreOffice, but not enough to really know. Thanks!
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Using LibreOffice to read MS Office files is an unfair comparison. That's asking it to do more than we ask of MS Office. Apples to apples it is very nearly on par.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Using LibreOffice to read MS Office files is an unfair comparison. That's asking it to do more than we ask of MS Office. Apples to apples it is very nearly on par.
uhmm.. Perhaps it's unfair, not sure I agree. Even so, it's super important to understand. 90% or more of the files sent to him from outside will be MS Office based or PDFs, if you don't take that into consideration You're in for a major disappointment. Same goes with pre existing files.
Now if you're a brand new (or relatively new) company with little expectation to share files outside of your own users, Go for it!
Our sharing of files with outside sources is one of the major reasons we stuck with MS Office.
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Files from the outside "should" be PDF. And that doesn't have to do with MS Office or LibreOffice. The office formats are for collaboration, PDFs are for sharing. One is an editing format and the other is a publishing format for when something is finalized. Stuff received from the outside isn't normally something that you are concerned with for editing because of the nature of it coming from the outside. Some companies do this, but it is increasingly rare as end users start to be slightly computer literate and understand what to use for what. Ten years ago DOCs were common for this kind of thing, today I see PDFs 90% of the time which has made office alternatives very viable.
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LibreOffice / OpenOffice do pretty well with MS Office files these days. It's not 100%, but it is pretty good. If you are doing continuous back and forth collaboration with MS Office, that's different except then you can tell the MS Office side to use the OpenDoc format.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Files from the outside "should" be PDF. And that doesn't have to do with MS Office or LibreOffice. The office formats are for collaboration, PDFs are for sharing. One is an editing format and the other is a publishing format for when something is finalized.
According to who?
Do many companies actually use LibreOffice? I couldn't imagine not using Office at work. It's not like it's expensive. I could maybe live without Word, but definitely not Excel.
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@Carnival-Boy Yes, lots of companies actually use Libre and OpenOffice and for the SMB it is often the most expensive software that they have. It's not "that" expensive but enough that even extremely profitable companies with hundreds of employees freak out each and every time they re-up it.
