ohh look they have done a version of Windows Server for children.

[Incognito]

As to gobbling up. I have run servers for all my working career, if you think a modern server which can virtualise lots of servers is somehow going to struggle showing a desktop then you obviously dont know what you are talking about. But then that was clear from the rest of your post.

And when you've scaled that out to 3 to 4 thousand virtual machines running away on your high end tin, then you go right ahead and buy new blades instead of optimising your existing set up. You quite clearly know nothing about the bigger picture. A data centre has finite limits of power and cooling. It's going to cost you top dollar when you hit that ceiling. But hey ho lad, you keep using that redundant desktop because you're too thick to understand remote management.

If you read the thread, you'd know I was talking about server core. Your info seems to be out of date too, the actual release of Windows 8 Microsoft have prevented disabling of Metro and removed the start button which your link shows screen shots of it still being there. This said, there is an add on package built by a 3rd party that adds their own start button. Do you use Windows 8? I do.

Seeing how official release date for Win 8 Enterprise is set for October sometime, then I doubt the GPO adm files are complete as of yet. I guarantee you, Enterprise will have a 'classic' desktop policy. Win7 had it as did Vista as did XP.

[Incognito]

But if you are virtualising lots of servers running W8 on one physical PC, i.e. trying to slice your host as many ways as possible, you surely MIGHT find the extra overhead of a Windows desktop is an issue - when you're running a data centre reducing your number of servers by 2% is significant... most places charge more for Windows hosting and I think that's not only due to licensing?

In addition, W8 probably requires a half-decent GPU and many servers probably don't have that.

When you deploy Win 7 in a VDI, first thing you do is optimise the image, that means switching off Aero because it's just window dressing hogging your bandwidth. Win 8 will have something similar. RemoteFX may be shining and dancing, but at the end of the day if you're sat on a crappy link, you don't care about bells and whistles.

And this is digressing, VDI is not what EscapeUK is postulating about, his weak understanding is on the benefit of server core. You are on the right line of thinking though about how small optimisations scale to large cost savings.