I've just been working on a new Dell server. It shipped with 2008 Foundation Server R2.
It turns out the application to be run on the server needs 32-bit, and all R2 releases are 64-bit only. I can't downgrade Foundation, so I need to first upgrade to Server 2008 Standard R2, from which I can downgrade to 2008 Standard (not R2) which has a 32-bit option. I say "first upgrade" but actually the upgrade option is more expensive than buying a new licence, so I've ordered a new Server 2008 R2 disk that I won't use (because I need the older version, which thankfully I am able to download from MS).
So, that's the licensing sorted for a mere £700 (Foundation + 2008 Standard), all I need to do now is install it.
Using an old 2008 server disk, I try to install, but having booted from the CD the first thing it complains about is not having drivers for the CD drive, so I can't proceed until I locate the driver, which of-course I'm not given any useful information to locate and the Dell site gives me several options, but I get there in the end. These days MS Server is quite advanced, so as well as supplying drivers on a floppy disk I can also use USB stick or CD, so that was something.
Once the O/S is installed I need drivers for several unknown devices, which Windows can only tell me are unknown, so I download all the drivers I can find and eventually find the half-dozen I need. This was made extra fun because Internet Explorer blocks pretty much everything except MS website by default (so I made an exception to allow me to download firefox....). In the meantime I downloaded updates, and (as required) rebooted; after the reboot another half dozen updates are there, and after the subsequent reboot a couple more, and so on.
I'm nearly there now though, having installed an alternative to the wonderful "notepad", a database server (MySQL), a web server (Apache), and an office suite (LibreOffice). Oh, and a task scheduler (nncron) and half a dozen other things.
So yes, I remember the days when Linux was this easy. Well nearly.
Pah!
[The reason for posting? It's times like this that I'm reminded just how much better Linux is at so many things, and including things like "installation" that Windows is apparently better at. Perhaps it is, when you have your hardware vendor's pre-configured install disk, although I'd probably still disagree. I think most of the time I forget just how lucky I am that I don't get forced to use Windows daily. Anyone who thinks Linux is better just because it would have saved me £700 is missing the point!]