In Windows 8, we reimagined the browser with IE10. We designed and built IE10 to be the best way to experience the Web on Windows. With the IE10 Release Preview for Windows 7 consumers can now enjoy a fast and fluid Web with the updated IE10 engine on their Windows 7 devices. The release preview of IE10 on Windows 7 is available for download today.

IE10 on Windows 8 brings an entirely new browsing experience and set of capabilities to the Web, such as a new touch first browsing experience and full screen UI for your sites, security improvements that offer the best protection against the most common threats on the Web, improved performance, and support for the HTML5 and CSS3 standards developers need. MORE

You may have noticed a steady stream of technical blog posts from the our Premier Field Engineering team covering a variety of Windows Server roles, features and functions.  One of the members of that team, Adrian Corona, did an excellent blog post on Active Directory (AD) indexing.  The information pertains to Windows Server 2003 and higher. MORE

Recently we came across the updated VMware cost per application calculator and discovered what our customers and partners have been telling us all along – VMware vSphere 5.1 costs more than Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 combined. And we’re not just talking about license acquisition cost, but also the capital expenditure costs (CAPEX), including power, space, storage, and server hardware costs. MORE

Some of you that know me (through my www.gpoguy.com and www.sdmsoftware.com sites), know that I spend an inordinate amount of time exploring, developing against and helping customers with Group Policy. So I was anxious to see what changes Microsoft made in Server 2012 with respect to Group Policy. Of course, as a Group Policy MVP, I had a chance to see and even give input on these improvements months ago, but now that this stuff is live, let's explore some cool new features that Microsoft has added to Group Policy. It's important to note that while these are really evolutionary rather than revolutionary, they've added some key new capabilities to make Group Policy really your best friend for enterprise-class configuration management. MORE

The Azure development team continues to make improvements to various aspects of the management portal.  You find new capabilities that include localization support for 6 languages, operation log support, support for SQL database metrics, Virtual Machine enhancements (quick create Windows + Linux VMs), Web Site Enhancements (support for creating sites in all regions, private github repo deployment), Cloud Service Improvements (deploy from storage account, configuration support of dedicated cache),  Media Service Enhancements (upload, encode, publish, stream all from within the portal), Virtual Networking Usability Enhancements and custom CNAME support with Storage Accounts. MORE