December, 2006

As many of you will have heard, we are on track to release our next major milestone of Windows Server "Longhorn" in the first half of 2007. Beta 3 will be feature-complete, and it will be the first *public* milestone of Windows Server "Longhorn", meaning...

Twas the week before Christmas and all through Redmond, not a creature was stirring ... except for the Windows Server virtualization development team. These folks gave some select system partners early bits (private beta) of Windows Server virtualization (aka, Viridian; aka, hypervisor). Sharing this type of technology to a small group of partners for testing is standard practice. A public beta of Windows Server virtualization is planned for the first half of 2007....

One of the more popular questions on our Windows Server "Longhorn" discussion forums is around the Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack . In particular, people have been asking why they can't use the Admin Pack on Windows Vista. It can be installed...

Some of you may have seen blog postings reporting on the release of a December 2006 CTP of Windows Server "Longhorn". Well, I can confirm that the rumors are true - we did release a new CTP to our Technical Beta Program participants in the last couple...

Today we launched a new Windows storage platform: Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDDS.) This new product – available now within Dell’s new PowerVault NX1950 hardware and through other OEMs later – represents a big milestone for Microsoft storage technology. By bringing together Windows Storage Server file server capabilities, Windows iSCSI target and initiator software, and new storage management features, WUDSS will be an ideal mid-range solution for customers looking to more easily store and manage file and block (email, database, line of business applications) data. ...

NEC Corporation today announced it has demonstrated the world's first dynamic partitioning of CPU and memory resources on the Beta 2 version of Microsoft Windows Server, code-named "Longhorn," using NEC's enterprise server Express5800/1320Xf. Express5800/1320Xf is a large-scale, high-reliability server that can run up to 32 Intel 64-bit Dual-Core Itanium 2 processors. The demonstration was conducted during the iExpo2006 exhibition held on December 6-8 in Tokyo, Japan. ...

If you're going to do a webcast about how Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" are great on their own, but even better together, then there's no point in having only one presenter do it. So it was decided that we should pair me (David Lowe) with...