I know some people using Win2003 as a workstation, so my question is - does it have any advantages over XP and what about games/apps compatibility on this OS?

I'm running windows 2k3 on a dual P3 here at home. I've got it to run dedicated servers for games like americas army, UT2003 etc of which require you to run the game firstly in order to start the server and havne't had any problems.

However I am not running a sound card within the server and therefore dont' know about sound quality. I can remember seeing an article shown on w2s that mentioned this and apparent sound and video problems due to directx or something like that.

Well I hope this helps.

you can use direct3d & sound fine; you just have to do some fiddling to get them to work

Im using it now, everything works just fine

But dont expect it to work the time you try

I am using Win2003 for the past 7 months(since RC1.. now on RC2). It has really won my heart. Everything runs smooth on it. had no problems regarding sound or graphics. BTW , I use Nforce onboard audio and Radeon 7200 agp.

I would really recommend it to you or everyone and if want any help regarding enbling sound and directx 9 . do ask.

I did use it originally but on xp i can run dedicated game servers and join them on the same system; with server i wasn't able to

I'm using the evaluation version on a system I built from spare parts. Neowin.net had an article on how to convert it to desktop use. I did everything except the uxtheme.dll and it works GREAT!!! A lot of apps won't run on it yet because of lack of driver support but with some tweaking XP/2000 drivers work just fine. I even got everything on a SBLive! Platinum working with the latest everything from Creative (it took some experimenting). It's like a cross-breed between XP Pro and 2000 Pro but faster than both...

Eval sysyem:
Asus A7V133 1010 beta BIOS
1.1 T-Bird 266 fsb
768MB Crucial PC-133 Cas2
2x WD 30gb hd's in RAID 0 (use the 2K Promise Drivers for the install then use the latest drivers for Server 2003)
Ati Radeom 64mb VIVO (Unreal image quality with the latest Omega drivers)
SBLive! Platinum
TDK 24x burner
*Everything above is at least 2 1/2 years old*

yup agree

I was doing a few registry hacks and a message box popped up that said I had attempted to modify files that violated the evaluation EULA. WHen I tried to reboot the system it sat at the log-in screen for 15 minutes before I restarted it. I tried repairing whatever I hosed using the Repair Console, no luck. I then tried a repair with the installation routine and had to do a clean install, it wouldn't recognize the previous installation. That was really a bummer because I had gotten the Evaluation dialog to to disappear from everything and I can't remeber how I did it. Oh well, it's free and is going to die in 5 months anyways. Live and learn, all it costs me is time...