As mentioned in previous posts , the Access-Based Enumeration GUI and Command-Line tools and whitepaper would be available as a separate download for SP1. It can now be downloaded here . Many thanks to Koni for tracking this - truly appreciated. Here...

The other day I was in a conversation where I drew the distinction between reliable and robust. I hadn’t really thought about it precisely but when asked to articulate the distinction I said that robust was “reliable across a wide range of...

Howdy! Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for. I’m proud to announce that Windows Server 2012 has been released to manufacturing. That means the final code is complete and we are delivering it to our hardware and software vendor partners...

There have been a few articles floating around on the Internet since we released the private beta of Windows Server 2003 SP2 a couple of weeks ago. To remove any mystery or speculation about what this Service Pack 2 is about, I thought I would take a...

My name is Crissy House and I am the Windows Server Operations Manager here at Microsoft. I handle a lot of our customer and partner questions and wanted to provide an update on upcoming support lifecycle changes for Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server...

Hi I’m Michael Kleef, Senior Technical Product Manager with the Windows Server and Cloud division. Today, on behalf of the team, I’m pleased to announce the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1), along...

As I write this, I’m in the room where it all happens - in building 26, better known as the ship room. Ten minutes ago Windows Server 2008 officially RTM’d. Also in here with me are my colleagues who have been working on Windows Vista SP1, also RTM’ing...

Today we reach another major milestone on the road to Windows Server "Longhorn" with the availability of Beta 3 . In addition to being feature-complete, Beta 3 is also our first public release, meaning that millions of IT professionals and developers...

I had a comment from my last post about the new SMB2 protocol that I wanted to follow up on...There was mention of support for 'Symbolic Links' in the post and Mr. Kevin Owen asked for some clarification. So, Kevin - straight from the developer who wrote...

With over 300,000 downloads of Beta 3 already under our belt, there is a lot of excitement here in Redmond as we get closer to our release candidate milestone for Windows Server 2008. Customers and partners are very impressed with what they see, and the...

Today Microsoft is kicking off an exciting week at our Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto. Windows Server 2012 will be a focus of attention at the event, of course, and it is nearing final release. In fact, at the conference we are announcing that...

Steve Ballmer annouced today our beta of Virtual Server 2005 SP1....now supporting x64 as host operating systems. I have had the personal pleasure of running this x64 version on a 4-way x64 box with 32G of RAM - doing demonstrations has never been easier...

We have received many requests from our customers and partners on when they will be able to get their hands on RTM code of Windows Server 2008 R2. As the Windows Server Operations Manager, I wanted to provide a broad timeline on when different groups...

Hi, Mike Neil here. It’s been a while since I've posted. To update you, I now oversee the development teams, plans and strategy for our virtualization software - both the desktop and server. In this role, I’m really fortunate in that I get to meet with a broad range of customers and partners. I value these meetings because the discussions and input helps validate my thinking and our planning, and other times it challenges some of my thinking and our planning. I know some of our customers and partners, after reading the Times' article, may wonder about our goals and strategy with respect to virtualization. I shared much of this with the reporter, but invariably the reporter couldn’t print all my comments. But it’s important for customers to understand our broader goals and strategy, and then from there some of the more specific issues. So I wanted to share my thoughts on this....

A number of people view the cloud in all or nothing terms – you move everything to the cloud or you leave everything where it is. The reality is that a lot of cloud adoption is going to follow the hybrid approach using both on-premises and cloud...

The acronym stands for Release to Manufacturing, and it means this latest release of Windows Server 2008 R2 is now blessed by engineering as ready for the manufacturing process. We're talking final code. Sun shining, birds singing, children dancing in...

The beta of Windows Server “8” is now available for IT professionals and software developers around the world to download, to evaluate, and to give us feedback on. In September we introduced Windows Server “8” with a preview...

In case you didn't see the news out of Denver today: [Kevin] Turner announced that Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 will launch together at an event in Los Angeles on Feb. 27, 2008, kicking off hundreds of launch events around the world. This weekend I watched Boeing launch the new 787 Dreamliner on TV. The event was a little stiff compared to Microsoft standards (afterall, most of the 15,000 were wearing collars, ties and snappy dresses), but the launch had a global feel and influence, and my favorite TV news guy, Tom Brokaw, emceed. And the event concluded with the dramatic unveiling of the plane, which won't make its debut flight until August or September. Unlike the 787 Dreamliner, we'll actually debut Windows Server 2008 before the February 2008 launch in LA. That's the plan. As the CNET article correctly concluded, Windows Server 2008 is still scheduled to be released by the end of 2007. Pay no mind to Joe or other conspiracy theorists who apparently are blogging from a book depository and grassy knoll in Denver. Since February 2008 has an extra day (it's leap year), I wonder if we considered the launch event on Feb. 29 ... that would've been something. Patrick ...

We're at the sold out Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington D.C. talking to our partners about the public beta release today of Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. We managed to get this puppy out the door a few weeks...

Announcing the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows Vista SP1! Do you remember ADMINPAK.MSI? This has been a staple for many IT Admins for many years. RSAT is an update to ADMINPAK.MSI for the WS08 administration tools to run on Windows...

Great news! We reached another important milestone on the road to the final release of the cloud optimized OS: Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate (RC) is available now for download and evaluation . If you haven’t yet started exploring the...

We’ve made good progress with Windows Server virtualization: we’re taking customer nominations for the technology adoption program (TAP); we have interop agreements with both XenSource and Novell; partners have provided productive input on the platform APIs; VHD image format available via the Open Specification Promise; a beta version will be available with the RTM version of Windows Server “Longhorn.” I believe Windows Server virtualization will be appealing for the core virtualization scenarios, from the mid-market and large organizations to the enterprise. Especially for mid-market customers, they have the greatest need for a virtualization solution that is reliable, offers integrated management tools, has world class technical support, and allows employees and partners to leverage their existing skill sets. But with all this progress comes the occasional tradeoff. So we are making the following changes, and postponing these features to a future release of Windows Server virtualization: No Live migration; No hot-add resources; Support limit of 16 cores/logical processors. I wanted to share this information this week with partners and customers so that no one is surprised at WinHEC when we demo all the other innovations in Windows Server virtualization. ...

As the person who oversees the development plans, teams and strategy for Microsoft’s virtualization software on desktops and servers, I want to update everyone on the timing of our server virtualization offerings. I know that many of our customers and partners will hear of these changes from their usual Microsoft contacts, but I wanted to personally explain some of the reasons behind the new schedule for Windows Server virtualization (codename Viridian) and Virtual Server 2005 R2 service pack 1. But first, here’s where we stand today: The public beta of Windows Server virtualization will ship in the second half of 2007, not in the first half as previously disclosed. The final version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 service pack 1 now will be available in Q2, not Q1 as previously stated. In the interim, customers and partners can download a Release Candidate (RC) version later this month - this is code complete and an update to the current beta 2. ...

We are at an exciting stage of the release. Beta has been out for some time now and we’ve gotten lots of great feedback. As we progress towards releasing the next version of Windows, many of the details are getting decided and communicated. This...

With Windows Server 2008 being released only 6 months ago, i'm sure it’s natural for people to wonder “what’s next?” As I have been combing through various blogs this weekend, I found it exciting to see so much interest and speculation over the next version...