General Question

zenth's avatar

Can someone please help me to differentiate between web server and window server?

Asked by zenth (64points) June 16th, 2013

Can someone explain me what is server and how it is different from web server and window server. Thanks

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4 Answers

Lightlyseared's avatar

A server is any computer that respond to requests across a network. That can be a local area network such as all the computers in a company or it could be the entire internet. A web server is a type of server that delivers content through the internet. This web site is sitting on a server some where and when you ask your computer to take you to fluther.com your computer asks Fluther’s web server for the info it need. A windows server is a server that’s running a Windows operating system like Windows Server 2012. It’s possible that a web server is running Windows.

rexacoracofalipitorius's avatar

There are such things as a “window manager” and a “display server”, but I don’t know what a “window server” is, unless it’s a server that runs Windows™ as @Lightlyseared suggests.

The word “server” can refer to a program that responds to requests or to a computer that runs those programs. My computer runs several server processes (including a display server) but it’s what you’d normally consider a “server” machine.

A “server” is part of a software architecture (or “design pattern”) called “client – server”. In this paradigm, a program (the client) needing a service contacts another program (the server) which provides it. This communication takes place through something called Inter-Process Communication or “IPC”. IPC can happen over a network or it can happen locally between two processes on the same computer (for example, right now my web browser it telling a display server what its window should look like, and the display server is drawing that window).
The usual sense of a “server” is, as @Lightlyseared states, something that services requests over a network. A display server is an example of one that mostly works locally (although some can also work over a network.)

If you can be more specific about what you mean by a “window server” or provide an example, you might get a better answer.

mattbrowne's avatar

A web server is a computer program running on a Windows server, a Unix server or some other server operating system. Of course it’s possible to install a web server on a Windows client, but when doing so the machine become a server for other clients.

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