Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Customer Preview Program

Deeps — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:53:00 GMT

With today's launch of the Customer Preview Program (CPP) for Windows Vista® Service Pack 2 (SP2), we wanted to provide a brief synopsis of the elements in this service pack, and encourage you to download and test this release. Windows Vista SP2 is a traditional service pack release with all cumulative released security updates available since the SP1 release in March 2008. In addition, Windows Vista SP2 includes support for new types of hardware and emerging standards that will grow in importance in coming months, along with fixes discovered via automated error reporting as part of our Customer Experience Improvement program.

What makes the Windows Vista SP2 release unique is that it represents a single service pack which applies to both client (Windows Vista SP1) and server (Windows Server 2008) operating systems—since the code base for Windows Vista is shared with that for Windows Server® 2008, a single update can be deployed across your infrastructure. This service model also provides the ability to detect an incompatible driver and block service pack installation, or warn users of any loss of functionality during installation. Other highlights for IT pros include:

Emerging Hardware Support

Bluetooth 2.1 feature pack
Ability to record data on Blu-ray media
exFAT file system now supports UTC timestamps, which enables correct file synchronization across time zones
Support for the new VIA 64-bit CPU
Support for ICCD/CCID smart cards

Hyper-V

Provides the Hyper-V virtualization environment as a fully integrated feature of Windows Server 2008, including one free daughter OS with Windows Server 2008 Standard, four free licenses with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and an unlimited number of free licenses with Windows Server 2008 Datacenter.

Security

Windows Vista SP2 incorporates previously released reliability updates, as well as addressing crashes discovered since the launch of Windows Vista SP1

Performance

Inclusion of Windows Search 4 for improved indexing performance, improved relevancy in search, broader indexing scenario inclusion, as well as new Group Policy integration for Windows Search
Reduction of resources required for sidebar gadgets

Wireless

Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless
Fixed issue where Wi-Fi connection was no longer available after resume from sleep

Administration and Support Improvements

Service pack clean-up tool: Restores hard disk space by permanently deleting the previous versions of the files (Windows Vista RTM and Windows Vista SP1) that are being serviced by Windows Vista SP2

We encourage you to download this service pack and test it on your lab machines. You should find that most if not all of your applications continue to function properly with this release. Also, we should point out that either Windows Vista SP1 or Windows Server 2008 is a prerequisite for installing this service pack.

Additional information on Windows Vista SP2 can be found in the Notable Changes in Windows Server 2008 SP2 Beta and Windows Vista SP2 Beta document. For more information on deploying and managing Windows Vista and related service packs, bookmark this blog and the Windows Client TechCenter at www.microsoft.com/springboard.

Windows Server 2003 SP2 Available for download

Deeps — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:58:00 GMT

Windows Server 2003 SP2 is released. Some of the new features include:

Windows Deployment Services is an updated and redesigned version of Remote Installation Services (RIS), allowing administrators to set up new computers through a network-based installation without having to be physically present at each computer and without having to install directly from DVD media.
Windows Server 2003 Scalable Networking Pack enables customers to cost-effectively improve the performance and scalability of network-based Windows Server 2003 workloads, such as file storage, backup, Web servers and media-streaming. The Scalable Networking Pack accomplishes this by providing support for networking technologies focused on eliminating operating system bottlenecks associated with network packet processing.
Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 supports the new Wi-Fi Alliance certification for wireless security, making it easier for end users to securely connect to Wi-Fi hotspots.
Improved IPsec Filter Management reduces the IPsec filter set that needs to be managed for a Server and Domain Isolation deployment from potentially hundreds of filters to as few as two.
“Firewall per port” authentication secures traffic between extranet environments and internal assets that are protected via IPsec domain isolation.
Microsoft Management Console 3.0 supports richer functionality in snap-in management tools, allows users to add or remove snap-ins and provides improved error handling via the MMC console.
Enhanced MSConfig provides a single launching point for common support tools that will ease server diagnostics.
Performance improvements under Windows virtualization and for SQL Server.

The TechNet Australia Blog : SP2

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Customer Preview Program

Windows Server 2003 SP2 Available for download