When you start to administer hundreds or thousands of servers, scriptability of CLI tools and pliability of text files trumps all computer automation.

xCAT and Salt are two tools (that I use regularly) which are built on these properties and can manage thousands of servers with a "flick of a finger".

A simple HTML form to "arm" the installation server, a simple reboot and PXE booting can be much more effective than all the painkillers combined for remedying the headaches of IT people and managers alike.

If you don't roll changes that often, you can distribute emergency USBs to install servers and workstations. Even a single USB can detect and install the system accordingly.

Of course we should point out sucky tools regardless of its platform.

I feel the need to sing, "You may have both.... you _may_ have both.... it's not so hard to imagine... MS even did it in certain products..."

Being able to tune a system from top to bottom solely with text files is just amazing. Also, some people hate "everything is a file" philosophy, but it's the enabler of this configurability.

When I started programming Linux and saw that everything was accessible via normal file system, it was a big relief compared to W32's iceberg environment, where you cannot see everything and sometimes water is too cold to dive that deep.

Backup is done the other way around, you backup your configuration scripts

The snap-ins?

A main criticism of all this is that the usual tools didn't work remotely - you need a different, undiscoverable, possibly differently licensed, set of tools from what you use to change settings on your local computer. And of course you can't easily set up Computer A and then clone its settings to Computer B; you can only do this globally through things like Group Policy.

I can't think of any that I use regularly that don't work remotely. Which snap-ins are you referring to? Most of them you just right-click on the top level object and select "connect to another computer".

A quick check shows the availability of "connect to another computer" is a bit random; I can do it in services.msc and taskschd.msc but not in diskmgmt.msc . Maybe that's why I've never found it before.