Running Windows Server OS on a regular desktop machine

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?

Solution 1:

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).

Solution 2:

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.