Partly because I’m a stickler for pain and partly because at ~5GB (Windows Server 2019), it represents a considerable disk and resource saving over the ~18GB of Windows 10. So, for these minority edge cases, an experiment was born to see Plex Media Server could in fact run on Windows Server Core. Server Core gives you a stable platform to ‘set it and forget it’. Consequently, by re-using the licenses your Plex install will receive security patches for many years to come, while remaining lighter than a client edition of Windows and – in the cae of Windows 10 – will save you from the 6-monthly ache of having to Feature Update Windows 10. The advantage of using even a down-version of Windows Server comes in the fact that versions of Windows from 2012 upwards all remain part of the Microsoft Long-term Servicing Branch (LTSB) support model. This may become more common again as your organisation starts migrating to Windows Server 2019. You may find that you have some old Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2 or 2016 Standard licenses knocking around from recent server decommissions. More commonly however, and perhaps more practically.
The argument is academic as long as your have the horsepower on your server to keep piling on additional VMs. If you fall into this category, it literally doesn’t matter how many VMs you install on your hypervisor. It’s not, obviously… unless you’ve got Windows Server Data Centre licenses. How is consuming a £900 Windows Server license any better? To date, my answer has been to run Plex Server in a Windows 10 VM, but this means consuming a £120+ Windows 10 Pro license so that it can effectively molly-coddle a tray icon.Īh ha! I hear you cry. Neither do I want it be forced to leave a logged-on VM running that does something else and thus increases the attack vector. I want Plex to be always on, but not to be sharing a with VM performing other duties. If you log off from its user account, it shuts down the service and you no longer have a working Plex environment.Īt home, the only computers that I have running 24/7 are servers and these are exclusively Hypervisors.
It’s a service, but one that insists on running in the userland (as a tray icon). The problem with Plex Server is that it isn’t quite a “server”. Where pushed due to lack of Kodi support Plex also gives a consistent alternative front-end user interface. I personally keep it installed as a gateway between Smart TV’s and my music/video/photo library as it is a convenient way of getting DLNA support on the network. Plex Server, the sometimes controversial media streaming hub, is a staple of the media diet of many home-brew media centre connoisseurs. “Just because you shouldn’t do something, doesn’t mean you can’t”
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