Hello

Our users no longer use the power-saving features of the monitors just because Windows then starts to reorganize the application windows and moves them to monitors that are not yet turned off.

Of course, Microsoft is not even able to restore the application windows exactly to their original position when the monitors are switched on again - which is a real shame, because the problem is trivial! therefore the request:

Therefore: please allow your customers to disable this automatic reorganization of application windows if Monitors are switched off.
This should be doable even for M$ which usually ignores usability issues for years :-(

This would allow us to protect the environment again and save energy.

Thanks a lot,
kind regards,
Thomas

Currently, Server-based personal desktop sessions are still underrated. Still it has a lot of potential and a lot of users are looking for a way to implement this, assign users to different Terminal Servers manually istead of letting the load balancer do it for them.
Unfortunately to have this configured we are forced to use PowerShell, which is not handy at all times.

To make this more reliable and easy to manage; add Server-based personal desktops to be configurable within the Server Manager under Remote Desktop Services.

IT-staff will then be able to easily assign groups of users to different terminals.

Also, this advertises for the product. It will be used by IT-staff more often because they now stumble upon it in the New Server Manager.

When going to apply updates, there should at least be an option to check for updates if updates are already found. This was previously an option through Server 2012 R2 and is no longer possible. Because of this, changes to available updates may not be received by the client computer until after the update list is applied and the server is rebooted. Given how locked down the update interface is now, even having that option automatically happen in the background would be great.

In my environment, I use WSUS to patch all of my servers. This month, KB4041691 was installed as both a CU and a Delta (the delta appears to have been a mistake). I didn't realize this until after the fact, but this means that the update was installed twice and caused my servers to not boot. The patch was expired 7 hours after being released, however any server that had checked into WSUS before that expiration still had the Delta as a required update. If the server had checked back into WSUS before applying the updates, it would have realized that the update was no longer valid. This would have saved several hours of troubleshooting. I ultimately had to use the recovery options to remove the update which caused the server to not boot using information from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-server-update-services/deploy/monthly-delta-update-isv-support-without-wsus

In my opinion Microsoft is following a wrong paradigm when it comes to providing server admins with context based background information while working on a server desktop.
It is regarding the use of referrals in the interface to sources on the internet in order to provide the administrator with more information. I know that, when Microsofts recommendation is followed and the core version is chosen, this is no issue at all, but since several server implementations still require the full graphical version (e.g. Exchange Server 2016) and many IT organisations still choose to use RDS for server administration, many admins will still be faced with this phenomenon.

An example: While on the desktop in an interactive session of a Windows Server 2016 machine, I click start -> settings (leftmost part of the startmenu), in the settings window I click “update & security”. Right at the bottom there is a link “Learn more”. Clicking on this link causes Internet Explorer to open in IEESC mode. The page that IE tries to open however needs Java script to be enabled, and without Java script enabled, no content is shown.

And this is my main concern: The Windows interface provides the admin with links that encourage enabling features that undermine security best practices.

What makes it even worse: there is no alternative way to obtain the information via another PC (e.g. from a RD session, copying the link and paste it in the browser of your admin PC), so the admin is forced to configure the server in a manner that conflicts with security best practices (best is to avoid using a browser at all, is my opinion, but apparently that is not Microsofts point of view).

I would like to encourage Microsoft to move to text-only referrals/urls or provide at least a way to copy the link to the clipboard. If that is not feasible somehow, make the web pages behind these links as plain as possible, so there is no need for browser extensions on the server.

I do believe that servers do not need a GUI and probably should not have one for performance and security reasons. With Windows Server 2016, the default installation is Server Core, and I do think this is a very good thing.

However, there are scenarios when a GUI can be handy, particularly for small business with limited IT resources (for example, for the Essentials role). In this scenario, instead of installing a GUI on the server (with calculator, Explorer, Internet Explorer, etc.) the user should be able to access and configure the server from a webpage just like most routers or many other appliances.