I appreciate everyone's comments about the error that was made when we made the x64 RC2 available as part of the Customer Preview Program (CPP). For those of you who were not aware of the problem – the 32-bit version of Server 2003 SP1 was accidentally...

When we announced the completion of the RC2 Milestone of Window Server 2003 x64/SP1 last week we indicated the following: - That the Window Server 2003 x 64 editions would only be available through the private Beta Program - The public Customer Preview...

There's a new (June 27) benchmark for SAP-SD, three-tier Internet configuration. See more here: http://www50.sap.com/benchmarkdata/sd3tier.asp . The benchmark used SQL Server 2005 (64bit) on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition, running on...

With its transition from Mainstream Support, today marks the first day (of at least 1,825 – five years’ worth) of Windows 2000 Server’s Extended Support Phase....

Intel’s Pat Gelsinger just demo’d a future version of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 running Intel’s Virtualization Technology (VT). IDF attendees saw an early preview of a future release (post-Virtual Server 2005 R2) of Virtual Server....

Today at Microsoft WinHEC , Bill Gates announced the Beta 2 releases of Windows Vista , Windows Server "Longhorn" and the 2007 Microsoft Office system and customers, partners and technical reviewers can barely contain their excitement over the new features...

My name is Shola Aluko and I am the product manager for Windows Storage Server 2003 R2. This is my first official blog posting. Hmm, can a blog be official ? Anyways, I was waiting for the right time to start blogging and this is it. We will be...

Under the new pricing scheme, an eight dual-core server (total 16 cores) containing IBM's Power chip would result in a charge for six Oracle processor licenses (.75 time eight). An eight dual-core server produced by AMD or Intel would result in a charge for four Oracle processor licenses (.50 times eight). The same eight way, dual-core server with Sun UltraSparc would result in two processor licenses (.25 times eight)....

On Monday, we announced that Microsoft and Whale Communications are teaming up to deliver an integrated access solution that combines ISA Server 2004 with Whale’s Intelligent Application Gateway . This integration creates one of the industry’s first edge...

Server virtualization is really not a new concept. Virtualization for the mainframe platform was available in the early 1970’s as a way to securely and reliably share the server resources among different operating system instances and the applications...

Due to the Martin Luther King holiday in the U.S. on Monday, it was a fairly quiet day on the roads and in the office. But there was a flurry of server virtualization news, news and news out of Redmond. Here are the lightlights: Acquisition of Calista Technologies, whose virtual desktop platform improves the remote desktop experience for running 3D graphics and multimedia capabilities to RDP. For one thing, Calista's technology reduces network bandwidth requirements and can accelerate data rates by as much as 20X. For those of you who are fans of Terminal Services, this acquisition will make TS use much better. Neal Margulis, the founder of Calista, posted here about his views on joining Microsoft. Do you want to run Windows Vista on a server? If so, now you can do so at a lower price point. Check out Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop allows you to run Windows in virtual machines on servers and access them from either PCs or thin clients. The annual subscription to Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop is now roughly $23 per desktop for rich clients covered by Software Assurance for Windows Client. If you want to run thin-clients, you can purchase a subscription for an estimated retail price of $110 per desktop. Citrix is developing software that will easily transfer virtual machines between the Xen hypervisor in Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to ensure greater interoperability. The tool, which is scheduled to be available to beta test in Q2 2008, will transfer all configuration information and driver set of the virtual machines in the Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk image format to run with Hyper-V. From the news release, “XenDesktop, planned for release in second quarter 2008, will support and extend Windows Server 2008 shortly after the availability of Hyper-V” Citrix will extend support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center in all its virtualization products: XenDesktop, Presentation Server and XenServer. a future version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager will support managing Citrix XenServer, and Citrix plans to integrate Hyper-V with Citrix XenServer. And Microsoft has expanded technical support to running MS Office applications via SoftGrid 4.2 or MS Application Virtualization 4.5. Microsoft application virtualization allows customers to pre-configure applications for offline use on a client PC; so end users can be fully productive on their machine, even when they are offline. Four new Solutions Accelerators will help you assess, plan, deploy and secure MS virtualization products [Hyper-V, SoftGrid, Terminal Services]. They’re available in beta form now, and will be GA at the end of February. All of this news, as well as an email from Bob Muglia and today’s webcast, can be accessed here. Patrick...

One of the benchmarks important to gauge performance of file servers and NAS devices is SPECsfs97_R1 set up by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC). This is a non-profit benchmarking organization and this specific benchmark has been...

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...

Today we announced that that same agreement now aplies to the virtual hard disk (VHD) image format used by Microsoft for encapsulating the OS and app within a virtual machine. Some early coverage has appeared in eWeek and CNET. And Sam posted an audio interview with XenSource's Simon Crosby at Port25. ...

It’s a big day for all of us on the Windows Server team as we welcome a new member to the family, Windows Server 2008 Foundation . Available through Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) partners as a pre-installed solution, Windows Server 2008...

For those of you who’ve enabled the Hyper-V role in WS08. It has been determined that a certificate error can occur resulting in the inability to start or connect to virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. The Hyper-V virtualization host and the existing virtual machines will continue to operate without disruption. A hotfix designed to prevent/resolve this error has been created and is available for download starting today. The following is a brief description of the issue as well as a link to the KB Article that provides the resolution. Even if you are not currently experiencing this issue, we recommend you download and install this update. Symptoms and resolution: § You may be unable to start or connect to virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. § KB Article 967902 has been created that details the symptoms and resolution. This KB article provides a direct link to download the quickfix to resolve this error....

If you’re in IT you are likely pulled between an almost infinite need for more computing power to deliver business solutions and the ever increasing demands for greater agility, higher efficiency and lower costs. Fortunately, you can now deliver...

I recently had a conversation where someone was talking about the difference between people vested in their community and those that aren’t. He said that when you walk by and see some trash on the ground, someone vested in their community will stop...

We’ve put a lot of work into Windows Server 2012, and are happy to see the positive feedback from press and those who’ve downloaded the beta . We look forward to presenting Windows Server 2012 at our June TechEd events in Orlando and Amsterdam...

Hi all – I’m David Hastie, senior product manager in the Identity and Security Business Group here at Microsoft. I wanted to flag an announcement Microsoft made today in the area of information protection and data loss prevention. It involves Rights Management...

Microsofties are often described as “work hard, play hard” types, and that can be no truer than when applied to the IIS team . Over the last few weeks, we have been out in force to deliver the good word about IIS 7.0 and IIS Extensions at conferences...

Building off the great work done on Windows Server 2008, I’m happy to share that next week, a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers will be getting their hands on Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Beta. As we have done in the...

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about IIS Extensions – new functionality for IIS that comes directly from the development team on a continuous basis. Well this week we have two more pre-release Extensions available, and each is a “Go Live” release candidate...

Microsoft’s Network Access Protection (NAP) solution was cited as a leader (the top category) in a recent independent report, “The Forrester Wave: Network Access Control, Q3 2008.” Microsoft was one of the many network access control (NAC) vendors invited...

We’re DONE with HPC Server 2008! We shipped our first beta last November, then a series of CTPs, then a second Beta in May, then a couple release candidates, and now we are FINISHED. 600MB of technical specifications, 500K lines of code, 250 customer...