Media playback on server 2003

[xs-1]

I'm trialling server 2003 as a desktop.

I've come across an odd bug that after a bit of goggling I can't solve.

It seems that when switching between mpeg2 video and divx or xvid playback any media player (MS media or Zoomplayer) seems to blank out the video footage in grey.

If I then access the video card driver panel the problem seems to correct itself. At a guess it’s a graphics card driver issue but different versions don’t fix it.

The card is nvidia FX5700 and an Abit NF7-S rev2.0 mobo.

Yes, video playback work fine in XPpro.

Any thoughts?

[Neo Neko]

The only thing I can think of "honestly" is not using a server distro as a desktop.

Why exactly would you want to use server 2003 as a desktop? What exactly does it provide that NT 5.1 does not? I am being serious here. I am actually interested to know.

If you are using "Server" as a desktop for the actual server functions because you want to host at home but only have one PC. I can safely say that you would be just as well off or better Sticking with XP SP2 and apache/php. They are generally more secure and more functional than the MS versions.

One other suggestion. Videolan. It really works.

[GrEEk_OuTcAsT]

When I was using Windows Server 2003 as Desktop use I had absolutely no problem at anything related to Media. The only problem I even encountered in this OS, was that some installations refused to start because I had a Server OS.

Make sure you have activated hardware graphics accelerations etc (in display properties), because by default they are off.

NeoNeko

Windows Server 2003 was just ultra stable to me. And also lots faster than Windows XP. I could hardly move back again to Windows XP, but with the SP2 release I decided give it a try and now I stay in XP because of compatibility reasons. I just hated when I tried to install a game in WS2k3 and I couldn't because of a useless external check of the installtion.

[Neo Neko]

Really. I have never noticed such a difference in the past. 2000 server was as fast or slower than 2000 Pro with extra services etc. Data Center Server 2000 was of course slower. IIRC Server 2003 is nothing more than Windows NT 5.1 server. So it seems really odd that it would be noticably faster. Since it is more or less XP.

[GrEEk_OuTcAsT]

The kernel version is newer than the XP's one.