The Virtual Hard Disk Getting Started Guide is 61 pages of great info outlining all the relevant scenarios, configurations, and options for using VHD files. This was release about 3 weeks ago but I missed it at the time due to training and TechReady9. The guide outlines basic scenarios like booting Windows...

Day 4 and 5 of TechReady were action packed, I didn’t even have time to post yesterday. I skipped the first session timeslot on Thurs to prepare for the double session I was presenting with Citrix. The double session format basically allocates two sessions (3 hours) to one topic letting you get into...

Day 3 kicked off with a keynote by Ray Ozzie and several very cool demos on UI futures, what’s coming across some of the Bing features, and some stuff MSR is working on. There was also a good discussion of how concepts move from MSR, to Labs, then into the product groups. Next up was a very entertaining...

The Hypervisor Functional Specification v2.0 for Windows Server 2008 R2 has been posted to the web and can be found here . The original v1.0 version for Windows Server 2008 RTM was described in this post . Here is the overview of the v2.0 version: This document is the top-level functional specification...

I was able to get a small commentary on desktop virtualization and VDI published in the Microsoft Architecture Journal . It’s based on the work I’ve been doing around creating a VDI offering to augment Microsoft’s server virtualization offerings. For a slightly expanded version of my thoughts on this...

The links below lead to a series of technical whitepapers on DirectAccess, BranchCache, and Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2. Networking Resources: DirectAccess and BranchCache Remote Desktop Resources: Kerberos, User Profiles, RemoteApp

The Windows Server Division blog announced that Windows Server 2008 R2 is tracking with Windows 7 and both are planned to RTM in the second half of July with General Availability on Oct 22! That RTM date is earlier than I thought it would be, I was thinking late August. The more I dig into R2 the more...

New step-by-step guides have been posted for the new Remote Desktop Services (RDS) found in Windows Server 2008 R2 including the new VDI scenarios. These replace the original step-by-step guide from a couple months ago that was basically too big since it included all these scenarios in one and was a...

Brian Madden has an excellent post up today called The hidden costs of VDI . I’ve been working nearly full time the last two months helping to put together a Microsoft Services offering around desktop virtualization in general and VDI in particular so have spent a lot of time looking into both the technical...