I was thinking of running maybe Windows Server 2008 or Windows Home Server on my home computer. But before I did the formatting etc, I would like to know if this is even possible. And I am then thinking driver wise. I have for example an ASUS motherboard with built-in network, wlan and audio, and an NVIDIA graphics card. But on the ASUS website there is not listed any drivers for these OSs. Only XP and Vista, etc.
Do you need special hardware to run these server OSs? Or can you use the Vista or XP drivers?
This is the best site I've seen with comprehensive information on running Windows Server 2008 as though it were a client OS:
http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/
Your Vista drivers should all work on Windows Server 2008, as it uses the same OS build.
As to the question of "why?", the answer is: often times you will need to run or test things which absolutely require Windows Server (f.e., SharePoint).
It's certainly possible.
As an example of how far you can take this, a friend of mine is running Windows Server 2008 on his Samsung NC10 netbook, along with Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008.
I suspect you'll get at least "generic" driver support for most hardware, but you may well not get the best performance out of your graphics card etc.
I've run server versions of Microsoft operating systems for years, starting with Windows 2000 Server. My workstation's running Server 2008. I've seen no issues.
Back in the bad old days, you were meant to have special, qualified hardware to run "server" OSs. I remember jumping through some hoops to get NT 3.51 running in an office full of Windows 3.1. Nowadays, there's not much difference between the server and "Professional/Business" editions of Windows. Vista and Server 2008 use the same kernel, for instance.
As far as performance, I think turning off Aero, if you're so inclined, will make more of a difference than Vista vs. Server 2008.
(Raymond Chen has a perverse story about running Windows Server Datacenter Edition on a Barbie PC. The links I find are broken, but Google's cache has it.)
As long as you have the drivers for the hardware, there's no reason why Server products wouldn't work on normal desktop hardware.
Most likely you have already mentioned the issues that you will run into (OS-specific driver needed that the manufacturer doesn't offer). Sometimes the XP/Vista drivers will work with the Server products, but YMMV.
You should not run Windows Home Server on your home desktop.
Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 are fine, though. WinSrv2008 uses the same drivers as Windows Vista, so you should be okay on that front.
It is possible but there are things that you can't make run on Windows Server like Media Center. Also make sure that audio configuration for server machine is different than on client machine - set the following:
Also be careful that some tools like Acronis True Image Home are meant to be used at home. What they mean by that is - client Windows OS. You will not be able to install such a tool on Windows Server. :-(
You probably can, at least I've seen it done for Server 08, but why would you when applications, drivers, and user experiences are optimized for client operating systems?
I've typically run a server OS on my laptops. Some software does a check and won't install unless it sees a server build (one of the SharePoint versions strikes me as one of the more recent exceptions). The only issues I've seen are for things like DVD playback and the Zune.
It really depends on what your primary purpose is. But as indicated, drivers may indeed be an issue. In most cases the generic drivers work fine, but you won't get the advanced performance. If you're into media and graphics intensive games, it's probably not a good fit. If you're looking for more of a development platform, it'll probably work for you.