[spongle]

No I wouldn't unfortunately.

I would, probably controversially, use Windows Server 2012 on mid-range HP DL or ML series kit. Since Windows 2008 R2 and the scriptability provided with PowerShell and PowerShell DSC have come around, it's a better compromise on usability versus automation that anything else I've seen so far. Not only that, it has a huge supported lifecycle.

Bear in mind I come from a very strong UNIX background going right back to M68K Sun3 era, through Solaris/HPUX and Linux and have used all on the desktop.

[noinsight]

But in this case the server seems to have been a "setup and forget" kind of deal, and that also implies that it was a smaller company...

I don't think PowerShell (and DSC) is that relevant in that kind of setup, scripting and automation tend to become relevant when you have a larger setup. It sounds like there wasn't much to automate anyhow (maybe system upgrades).

Also, doesn't at least Red Hat also offer a 10 year support cycle?

Personally I would raise one issue with Windows that seems to make UNIX(-likes) a better choice for this kind of setup:

System updates are problematic with Windows because of the need to reboot whereas of course on UNIX systems you only need them after kernel upgrades. I would wager that rebooting would be the thing that "breaks" an unmaintained box such as this one, some day. Then again, system updates are another candidate.

[spongle]

It was a small company (family farm machinery outfit) but their requirement is far more common than a massive software deployment. There are literally millions of servers churning away on trivial jobs in people's offices etc.

Powershell allows automated maintenance and edge cases to be dealt with efficiently. DSC allows repeatable deployments i.e you can use it to represent all your basic tenets of a reliable secure system. You don't build a system then throw it in the field with fingers crossed that you remembered every step when you built it. I have personally written hundreds of pages on procedural documentation on this and I can now script up that knowledge easily.

RedHat is an option but the system is fragmented and randomly documented. Microsoft documentation is absolutely wonderful in comparison. Not only that, I can grab a competent sysadmin for the windows platform easily here in the UK. The Linux guys are few and far between and generally cowboys from experience (even at the £60k level).

Windows rarely needs rebooting unless you are doing something wrong. Not all updates need to be applied. We pick individual ones in scope with what is being deployed and used and push them out rather than use windows update. This is standard practice on servers. Desktops get windows updates on time as the attack window is usually way larger.

It is feasible not to update windows server if configured properly and if it's on a corporate LAN for example.