I’ve been a huge Linux fan for years – and that hasn’t changed one bit. I run Linux in VMs, on servers, and pretty much anywhere I can get a shell prompt. I still love its flexibility, openness, and its beautiful CLI-first philosophy. To be honest, there was even a time when I was a full-blown “Linux-only” evangelist. Not just technically, but ideologically as well.
At the same time, I’ve always enjoyed using Windows on the desktop. Both worlds have their strengths and weaknesses. Linux gives me freedom, transparency, and endless opportunities to tinker. Windows, on the other hand, has consistently delivered excellent hardware support, mature drivers, painless firmware updates, reliable power management, and great peripheral compatibility. Things like standby, BIOS updates, fingerprint readers, and random hardware quirks often just work. Sometimes that’s worth a lot.
That said, I have mixed feelings about moving more of my private infrastructure back to Windows. Topics like digital sovereignty, privacy, and the current geopolitical climate – including developments in the US and around Donald Trump – definitely make me pause for a moment. As someone who has been deeply involved in the Linux ecosystem for years, I strongly associate Linux with transparency, control over my systems, privacy, and IT security.
For me, Linux was never just an operating system. It was always part of a broader philosophy around digital self-determination and owning your technology instead of merely renting it from someone else. That’s also one of the reasons why I’ve spent a lot of time looking into privacy-focused projects like GrapheneOS.
If you’re interested, I’ve written more about that topic here.
And yet… here I am. Again.
Funny enough, I’ve actually been down this rabbit hole before. About a year ago, I wrote a blog post about moving parts of my homelab back to Windows. That original post has since been retired, and this article replaces it entirely – because, just like homelabs themselves, opinions, requirements, and architectures tend to evolve over time.
🧪 Evaluating Windows Again
I’m currently evaluating whether I want to move back to Windows in my private environment – both on my desktop clients and on my NAS and homelab infrastructure using Windows Server 2025.
But this time, I don’t see Windows as the center of my universe. I see it more as an infrastructure management layer.
My homelab currently consists of three servers, several PCs, laptops, and assorted devices that somehow accumulated over the years because, well… that’s what homelabs do. It’s a fairly heterogeneous environment. Linux isn’t going anywhere. Containers, automation, Kubernetes, Ansible, and all the other fun stuff will remain important parts of my setup.
My current idea is to use Windows Server as the control plane for my infrastructure. Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Group Policies, central file shares, and user management could provide a solid foundation upon which everything else runs. Windows becomes the management layer while the actual workloads continue to span both ecosystems.
And honestly, once most of your clients already run Windows, things like Active Directory, Group Policy, Hyper-V, and centralized update management suddenly start looking surprisingly attractive. It’s a bit like discovering that the thing you’ve been avoiding actually solves some real problems.
🤖 Claude, PowerShell & AI-Assisted Sysadmin Adventures
One thing that has made this entire experiment particularly interesting is AI.
This time I deliberately tried something completely different. I’ve been actively using my favorite AI, Claude, as my Windows Server co-administrator. Through SSH, WinRM, and a healthy amount of PowerShell, Claude has become surprisingly useful in helping me configure and troubleshoot my server.
Whenever I get stuck, I simply throw the problem at Claude, discuss possible solutions, and usually end up with working PowerShell scripts that I can understand, modify, and deploy. Filesystems, partitions, Group Policies, shares, permissions, services – Claude has helped me with all of it.
As someone who doesn’t live inside Windows Server every single day, this has been incredibly useful. In some ways, it feels like pair-programming with an infinitely patient sysadmin who never gets annoyed by my dumb questions and somehow remembers every PowerShell parameter ever invented.
I also plan to publish some of these PowerShell scripts and configuration examples on my GitHub account over the next few days. Before doing so, I want to spend some more time testing everything thoroughly and making sure it behaves properly in different scenarios.
💾 Storage Spaces, ReFS and Living Dangerously
I also decided to try something new with storage.
Historically, I’ve mostly relied on the HP software RAID controller inside my HP MicroServer. It worked, it was familiar, and I knew its quirks.
This time, however, Claude convinced me to experiment.
I created a Storage Spaces pool across three SSDs using parity mode, which is roughly equivalent to RAID5, and layered Microsoft’s ReFS filesystem on top of it.
Now, let’s be honest: ReFS is not ZFS.
ZFS is still the filesystem I admire the most. It’s mature, feature-rich, battle-tested, and in many areas simply more advanced. ReFS still feels like it’s playing catch-up. It doesn’t offer the same depth of functionality, and its development appears considerably less ambitious.
But surprisingly, a lot of people report good experiences with the combination of Storage Spaces and ReFS, especially in smaller environments. So far, it has been running perfectly fine for me.
Will it still be fine in six months? I have absolutely no idea.
But then again, uncertainty is basically one of the core design principles of every homelab.
🖥️ Current State of the Lab
The environment itself is still relatively small but fully operational. Active Directory is running, test users exist, NTFS-based file shares are in place, and the core infrastructure services work reliably.
It’s not my final setup. It probably never will be.
Because that’s ultimately what homelabs are about: experimenting, learning, breaking things, rebuilding them, and occasionally creating entirely new problems for yourself simply because it seemed like a fun idea on a Friday evening.
⚖️ Practicality > Purism
I’m still very much a Linux fan, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Linux remains an essential part of my homelab and probably always will.
But these days I’m much more pragmatic than I used to be.
I’m no longer asking myself which operating system is philosophically correct. I’m asking which tool solves my current problems in the most practical and maintainable way.
Maybe everything will be back on Linux in a year.
Maybe Windows Server 2025 will become a permanent fixture in my homelab.
Or maybe I’ll end up with a gloriously over-engineered hybrid environment where Windows manages Kubernetes clusters that deploy Linux containers which somehow automate parts of Windows again.
Honestly, that sounds exactly like something I’d build.
For now, I’m simply going to keep experimenting.
Because that’s the beauty of homelabs: they evolve together with you, your interests, and your ever-changing collection of slightly questionable technical ideas.
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