The Microsoft Wow Blog!: Server

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V has RTM'ed

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:23:25 GMT

Today, Microsoft reaches a significant milestone for customers and partners with the release of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization feature included in select versions of Windows Server 2008. Those who have already deployed the x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows Update beginning July 8, while new customers and partners can download Hyper-V later today (12:00 pm PT). The Windows Virtualization team will be counting down the days to download from Windows Update, so be sure to visit the Windows Virtualization Team blog to see daily spotlights on specific features and benefits of Hyper-V technology, as well as to read about customer stories and see postings from guests.

Since the beta release of Hyper-V in February, more than 250 customers have participated in Hyper-V’s early adoption program. Microsoft’s own deployment and results with Hyper-V is showcased today in Rob Emanuel’s guest blog and video on the Windows Server Division blog, specifically on customers using Hyper-V and partner benefits, visit the Microsoft PressPass site.

Also, check out the new Hyper-V videos on TechNet Edge:

TechNet Edge Interview: Hyper-V Overview with Mike Neil
TechNet Edge Interview: Hyper-V Program managers interview Part 1
TechNet Edge Interview: Hyper-V Program managers interview Part 2

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

MSDN and TechNet Powered by Hyper-V

Wed, 21 May 2008 19:26:03 GMT

For the last several months we have had the opportunity to focus on virtualizing both the MSDN and TechNet websites with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V as a start to our overall virtualization adoption strategy. This was a group effort across our entire Operations Team including individuals from the Technical Architecture group I am part of, the System Engineers who run the sites, the data center hosting team which handles our infrastructure changes and the very supportive product group which is responsible for MSDN and TechNet. Today we are very pleased to be able to share how Hyper-V was deployed for those two sites and our lessons learned through that process. We have written an article on the TechCenter which goes through how we approached virtualizing MSDN and TechNet and hopefully conveys how successful we found Hyper-V to be as a web platform.

The article covers the reasons and characteristics which made MSDN the first site we looked to move onto Hyper-V. It provides an overview of how both Hyper-V Beta and Hyper-V RC0 were deployed as well as the general architecture used for the deployment. Possibly the most surprising finding was that Hyper-V was far more stable than we had expected for a beta version deployment. There was in fact no difference we found in stability or availability between Hyper-V and a physical deployment! We were also not able to identify any bugs for the Hyper-V team during our deployment under either full production load or even stress load.

An excerpt from the article:

Implementation

The rollout of Hyper-V in our production environment followed our standard approach to new technology adoption. Our architecture allows us to use global and local load balancing to quickly bring clusters or individual servers into and out of rotation. We heavily leverage this agility during our technology adoption efforts. This helps us safely bring new systems under production load in a controlled manner, while ensuring a continued positive customer experience.

After analyzing the results of some standard performance tests (for example, memory, CPU, and I/O) our confidence in Hyper-V was such that we moved to site-specific testing in production. We monitored the site with normal production monitors while gathering detailed performance metrics specific to each physical server and virtual machine (VM). The production monitors include basic server health as well as end-to-end application tests. This ensured that the deployment was meeting or exceeding previous MSDN and TechNet site performance and availability targets.

Hyper-V Beta Deployment

Our production testing began in early February 2008, when we installed the Hyper-V role on two physical servers, with each hosting three VMs running MSDN. Production load on these six VMs progressed from a cautious 1 percent to 20 percent very quickly and smoothly. During the next six weeks, we tested various amounts of load and VM combinations to better understand the performance characteristics and scalability of the product and the site. MSDN was also deployed directly onto matching physical servers to compare VMs against physical performance, scale, and stability with the same load characteristics.

In an effort to push the site and Hyper-V to their performance limits, we replayed production IIS logs by using the Web Capacity Analysis Tool (WCAT) to understand the upper range performance and scale characteristics.

We tested and compared one, two, and finally three VMs per physical server. The data gathered is in line with those discussed in the "MSDN and TechNet Virtualization Results" section later in this article. The performance and stability of MSDN on the Hyper-V Beta release were so encouraging that, with RC0 nearing release, we began making preparations to move to the next phase of implementation.

Update: The full article can be seen here.

The success of Hyper-V as a web platform for both MSDN and TechNet for performance and stability has given us the confidence to accelerate our plans to implement Hyper-V for many of the other sites we run, such as the live traffic testing of www.microsoft.com on Hyper-V, which we have already started. We are also actively working on our internal adoption of SCVMM 2008 as a major part of our overall virtualization strategy.

As we deploy more systems with Hyper-V and have information from our adoption of SCVMM 2008 we will share that on our TechCenter in the form of additional articles or blog entries.

Source: Microsoft | Virtualization Team Blog

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Shutdown, Reboot, Remote Desktop all machines right from Windows Home Server console

Sun, 11 May 2008 20:06:49 GMT

ASoft AutoExit for Windows Home Server is a console add-in for Windows Home Server.

It can be used to shut down, reboot machines in your home network from within the console.
Wake On Lan is also supported, this enables you to easily boot up machines remotely.
You can execute these actions per machine or for all machines.

Other handy features are sending messages to the different machines, configuring the timeout/message.
There is even support for opening a Remote Desktop session to the remote machines and to the server!
Statistics are kept of all actions, so that a detailed trace can be viewed on when certain actions were executed.

AutoExit for Windows Home Server is free and does not need registration.

Current version
The current version is 2008

Requirements
Windows Home Server

Pricing
Free

Download AutoExit 2008 for Windows Home Server

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

NTFS Compression bug fixed on WHS

Fri, 09 May 2008 18:25:04 GMT

The Windows Home Server team has solved a software bug that may affect files that are compressed using Advanced Attributes (NTFS compression). NTFS compression can be enabled on an individual file, folder or at the hard drive level and is sometimes enabled by users to save disk space on a home computer. More information on the bug and a link to download the fix at KB950190.

You can visit the Windows Home Server Community Forums if you want to ask questions or discuss this issue, by accessing this thread.

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Virtual Machine Snapshots with Hyper-V

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:20:12 GMT

Snapshots are a new feature of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Snapshots are a point in time version of a virtual machine…..what does that mean you ask? It means that you can be running a virtual machine, take a snapshot and at any point you can select a previous snapshot and revert back to that point in time. You end up with the virtual machine in the EXACT configuration that it was when you took the snapshot…and I mean exact….memory, virtual hardware, processes, state, etc. So you can have a running virtual machine, take a snapshot, change the virtual hardware configuration, format the disk and install a different OS, it does not matter, when you apply the previous snapshot it looks exactly like it did when you took the snapshot.

Snapshots do not affect the running state of the virtual machine, meaning that taking a snapshot does not change the virtual machine hardware, applications, or the currently running processes. It also means that deleting a snapshot does not change the virtual machine either….it just means that you cannot go OOPS and go back to that point in time to get you out of something you just did.

The snapshot files consist of the following:

A copy of the VM configuration .xml file
Any save state files
A differencing disk(.avhd) that is the new working disk for all writes that is the child of the working disk prior to the snapshot.

If you create snapshots one right after each other and never apply a previous snapshot, the you will have a tree with one branch. if you apply a previous snapshot, then you will get another branch to the snapshot tree starting at the applied snapshot.

Creating Snapshots – How does it work?

When you create a new VM in a directory, let’s say D:\TestVM, two sub directories are created – D:\TestVM\Snapshots and D:\TestVM\Virtual Machines. The \Snapshots directory contains nothing, but the \Virtual Machines directory contains the original XML configuration file saved with a unique GUID as the filename with an .xml extension and a directory to house the save state files (.VSV and .bin) memory files. The directory also uses the same GUID as the directory name. I will refer to this as the VMGUID.

Note: All the filenames and directories are actual GUIDs, I am using friendly names to make it easier to write and understand the concept.

The VMGUID.XML file points to the D:\TESTVM\TESTVM.VHD as the current VHD for all writes. Before you do any snapshots, all changes get written to the D:\TESTVM\TESTVM.VHD file and any save state is saved in the D:\TestVM\Virtual Machines\VMGUID directory.

When you create the first snapshot you have two scenarios: [1] You create it with the virtual machine powered down or [2] you create it while the virtual machine is running.

CASE [1] – VM is powered off

It creates two directories in the D:\TestVM\Snapshots\ folder

One with a folder name of VMGUID – this is where all the avhd files will be stored for all snapshots (This only happens for the first snapshot)
One with a new GUID for a folder name – this is where the memory save state for this snapshot is stored, I will refer to this as SNAPGUID
In this case no files are written to D:\TestVM\Snapshots\SNAPGUID here because the VM is powered down and there is no memory state

It also creates a copy of the VM’s XML configuration file with filename SNAP1GUID.XML
It creates a working .avhd files with another GUID and stores it in the D:\TESTVM\Virtual Machines\VMGUID directory. I will refer to this as WORKING.AVHD
The VM’s original VMGUID.XML file is updated to point to the new WORKING.AVHD as current VHD

CASE [2] – VM is powered on

Everything that happens for CASE [1] happens for case [2] except in this case the memory is saved to disk and stored in the D:\TestVM\Snapshots\SNAPGUID folder as a BIN with the actual memory saved and a VSV with supporting process information.

Both Case [1] and [2] proceed the same from here….

From this point on, all writes are written to the WORKING.AVHD file. If you make a bunch of changes and then decide to use Revert (to go back to the point in time of the first snapshot), this is what happens

The WORKING.avhd file is deleted and a new one is created with a different GUID
The VM’s original VMGUID.XML file is updated to point to the new WORKING.AVHD as current VHD
If there was a save state file to load it would be loaded and the VM would be resumed from save state.
If there was no save state file to load, the machine would remain powered down since you took the snapshot when it as powered down.

So you make a bunch of more changes and then take another snapshot, this is what happens

A copy of the current VMGUID.XML files is made, placed in the SNAPSHOTS folder and given a filename with a new GUID, let’s call it SNAP2GUID.XML
A folder is created in the SNAPSHOTS folder using the SNAP2GUID to house the save state files for this snapshot, The VM is save stated to this folder
The current D:\TESSTVM\Snapshots\VMGUID\WORKING.AVHD file is now the point in time state of the VHD (the GUID does not change)
- Its parent is the original TESTVM.VHD file
A new WORKING.AVHD file is created with a new GUID
- Its parent is the old WORKING.AVHD file
The VMGUID.XML file is updated to the new WORKING.AVHD

So for each new snapshot in succession

A copy of the current VMGUID.XML is made and placed in the VMs SNAPSHOTS folder, the filename is a unique GUID
A new directory is created in the SNAPSHOTS folder to hold the save state files, the folder name is the same as the GUID in (a) above
A new avhd file is created with a new unique GUID. This becomes the new working avhd file and the existing one becomes the RO parent.
All new writes are made to the new working avhd file

Hope that provides you with a better understanding on what snapshots are and how they are created under the hood…..I will save deleting snapshots for a future post :-)

Source: Robert Larson's Blog

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Windows Server 2008 IT 24-7 Robot Wallpapers, Screensavers and Buddy Icons

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:04:30 GMT

Check out Windows Server 2008 Unleashed's IT 24-7 Robot Wallpapers in 4 Action Poses in 8 different screen resolutions.

Download from here, For each screen resolution there are 4 different poses wallpaper :

1920 x 1200 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

1600 x 1200 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

1600 x 1050 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

1440 x 900 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

1280 x 1024 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

1280 x 960 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

1280 x 800 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

1024 x 768 = IT 24-7 Robot Pose A, B, C, D

Also check out the IT 24-7 Screensavers :

I.T. 24/7 Robot Screensaver #1 (size : 9 MB)
I.T. 24/7 Robot Screensaver #2 (size : 12 MB)

And the Buddy Icons:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/serverunleashed/default.html

Source: meraTechPort

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Hyper-V: How to make sure you are getting the best performance when doing performance comparisons

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:03:14 GMT

As we have moved from Beta to RC the number of questions I have been getting around Hyper-V performance have grown quite a bit. It’s time to put some tips out on how to avoid some common pitfalls.

Pitfall 1: The first and most common has been running without Integration Components (http://blogs.msdn.com/tvoellm/archive/2008/01/02/hyper-v-integration-components-and-enlightenments.aspx ) This is understandable because they are new with Hyper-V and figuring out if they are running is not simple unless you know a few tricks.

The IC’s are important because they can improve overall workload performance from 10’s of percent to more commonly 100’s of percent. This is why they are so important.

Resolution: Make sure IC’s are installed. I have two tips on how to do this.

The first is to connect your VHD’s / Drives to the Virtual Machine using the virtual SCSI controller. What’s nice about this is if your drive shows up is Disk Manager (run diskmgmt.msc) you know you are using IC’s. The virtual SCSI controller requires VMBus to transfer data from the guest to the root for processing. I also like to put my drives on the virtual SCSI controller because in some cases performance is better. Yes this is really true this time. I have the data J Filter driver IDE is very efficient and you won’t have any issue using it as a data drive for most applications. My personal preference is virtual SCSI.

The second tip is to check the device manager to see if VMBus is present and running. VMBus in and of its self does not mean all your devices are running though IC’s. Rather it is a prereq. For example if you attach a “Legacy Network Adapter” to your VM in the Hyper-V manager or via WMI you are running your network over the emulated path which is slower. IC's wont fix this.

Here is a picture of VMBus in the guest device manager. You also notice some of the more user visible Hyper-V IC’s like Hyper-V Heartbeat, …

Pitfall 2: This second most common pitfall has been having the Hyper-V manager open during performance runs.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having these windows open however they are not free. For example the thumbnail view. This thumbnail continuously updates when the Hyper-V manager is open. The update is periodic (today its seconds in future releases it might be different – no guarantees) and requires a read of 4MB+ from the virtual graphics card. This creates a background load on system the system.

The other thing the Hyper-V manager does is poll for each running machines CPU utilization and uptime (today its every couple of seconds in future releases it might be different – no guarantees). This too can create background load of the system.

Both the thumbnail and machine queries are sent to the VMMS (vmms.exe) from the the Hyper-V manager/WMI which in turn requests data from each running Virtual Machines MotherBoard (vmwp.exe). You can see there is a minimum of three processes involved is getting the machine data and thus the background load.

Here is a picture of the Hyper-V Manager. Nothing the thumbnail in the lower left corner and the CPU and uptime next to the machine names…

Recommendation: Either close the Hyper-V manager during performance runs or at minimize it. When you minimize the manager it will go “idle” and stop querying for information. This includes both Hyper-V managers running on the Hyper-V Server system as well as remote managers. My preference is to close it.

Pitfall 3: The third most common pitfall I have seen is having lots of VMConnect Windows Open. The VMConnect windows are essentially the console to the system. These views require painting of the screen and are active even if you have Terminal Services (TSed) / Remote Desktoped connected to the guest VM. You can image lots of graphics done without hardware support (like an ATI or nVidia card) is expensive on the CPU.

The following is the VMConnect Window…

Recommendation: Close VMConnect windows when doing performance runs. You can run remote processes using psrun.exe from http://www.sysinternals.com (a Microsoft Company) or if you really need interactive control use straight TS / Remote Desktop. I’ve seen this shave a couple of % off CPU utilization.

Conclusion: It you get 1, 2, 3 right you are 99% down the path of best performance. I’ll cover some more advanced tips and topics like scheduler CAPs / Weights / Reserves in a future post.

Source: All Topics Performance

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

New white paper on the advantages of a Core Install of Windows Server 2008

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:29:45 GMT

Microsoft IT just published a new technical case study called “Enhancing Availability with a Server Core Installation of Windows Server 2008”. It talks about how they deployed this new install option, which removes applications and components typically associated with client installs, like Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, Media Player and Windows Mail.

They listed several benefits of the new Core install option, including:

Reduced management and maintenance
Reduced attack surface
Streamlined installation
Maximized hardware utilization

Server Core does not apply to every Windows Server role, but they mention deploying the following scenarios:

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)
Domain Name System (DNS) Server service
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server service
File services
Hyper-V
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Print services
Windows Media Services

Here’s a quote from that paper: “The Server Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 enables Microsoft IT to have more control over its server and network infrastructure. A Server Core installation also helps increase security by providing a reduced attack surface and helps reduce overall costs because of reduced deployment and maintenance requirements.”

Read the full white paper at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc500983.aspx

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

The Server Unleashed | Windows Server 2008

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:22:28 GMT

Explore Windows Server 2008 using Silverlight experience at ServerUnleashed.com

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Hyper-V RC0 released, download now

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:34:25 GMT

Today Microsoft delivered the Hyper-V release candidate (RC) code broadly to customers and partners. This is a key milestone signaling that Microsoft is on track to deliver Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization by August 2008. Hyper-V RC is a feature-complete version and has three main enhancements from the beta release:

An expanded list of tested and qualified guest operating systems including: Windows Server 2003 SP2, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows XP SP3.
Host server and language support has been expanded to include the 64-bit (x64) versions of Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter - with English, partial German, and partial Japanese language options now available and the ability to enable the English version of Hyper-V on other locales.
Improved performance & stability for scalability and throughput workloads.

The release candidate provides updated, near-final code that customers and partners can download at http://microsoft.com/Hyper-V to begin planning and testing the end deployment scenarios. With less than 10% of all servers virtualized, Microsoft has a broad set of cost-effective products (spanning the desktop to the datacenter) that position the company to take advantage of significant growth opportunities in the virtualization space. Hyper-V provides customers with efficient and cost-effective virtualization infrastructure software, and now with the availability of the latest test code, Microsoft is one step closer to making virtualization a reality for customers. For more information on the announcement visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/mar08/03-19RCHyperVPR.mspx

Windows Server Division Weblog
Windows Virtualization Team Blog
System Center Team Blog

Download Now!

Source: blogs.technet.com

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Using Windows Server 2008 as a SUPER workstation OS

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:03:11 GMT

Windows Server 2008 is the best OS to be released till date from Microsoft's stable. And the moment I got hold of the RTM build I could not resist installing it on my workstation. Due to the nature of my work I always prefer running a Server OS on my main workstation... I have been running Windows 2003 disguised as XP (with all the themes and stuff) all these days.

So here is my tale of how I went about setting up Windows Server 2008 to look and fell like its desktop counterpart Windows Vista.

1. Enable Hardware Virtualization

My workstation is a x64 machine with hardware virtualization capabilities. This means I can run Hyper-V on my machine. Even if your machine's hardware supports virtualization it is most likely not going to be enabled by default. You have to enable it via your BIOS setup.

2. Install the latest Graphics and Audio drivers

Being a server OS Windows 2008 carries with it basic graphics and audio drivers. To utilize the full strength of your hardware ensure you install the latest drivers for both graphics and audio hardware. Only with the proper graphics drivers will you be able to enable the "Aero" experience on Windows 2008.

3. Desktop Experience Feature

The Desktop Experience Feature enables a bunch of stuff that is by default present on a desktop OS. Most importantly it includes Themes, Windows Media player and the Aero related features. You will have to enable it form the Server Manager. The "Turn Windows features on or off" / "Add remove windows components" has all been rolled into the Server Manager now.

Server Manager > Features > Desktop Experience

Installing the Desktop Experience feature does not enable them. You have to manually set them up.

4. Themes

To enable Themes you will basically have to enable the Themes Service. Again being a server OS it is not enabled by default.

Services.MSC > Themes

Set the start up type to Automatic

Enabling the Aero Theme.

For this go to Control Panel > Personalization >Theme and select Windows Aero

5. Search

Search is also disabled by default on Windows 2008. Searching is important for me as I use it a lot to find my emails. To enable search you will have to add the File Services Role via Server Manager.

Server Manager > Roles > File Services > Windows Search

Outlook relies on this search service.

6. Disable Shutdown Event Tracker

Since I am using it as a workstation I do not want to keep a track of all the Shutdowns. The Shutdown Event Tracker is the pop up that you get asking you for a shutdown reason. To disable it

Open mmc.msc

Add the Group Policy snap-in

Under Administrative Templates expand System

Set Display Shutdown Event Tracer to Disabled

7. Audio

For audio you need to enable the Windows Audio service. You do this by setting the startup type to Automatic.

Services.msc > Windows Audio

Ensure you have proper drivers for your audio hardware... for me the default driver was not enabling the headphones ... it started working fine after I got the proper driver.

8. SuperFetch

As a workstation, enabling SupertFetch will give you that additional bit of responsiveness. The SuperFetch services is disabled by default and when you try to enable it you will most likely get an error message "The operating system is not presently configured to run this application"

You will have to make two registry changes to enable this service. I basically copied them over from my Vista machine.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

EnablePrefetcher DWORD 3

EnableSuperfetch DWORD 3

9. Get a codec pack.

For media hungry buffs download a codec pack. This will ensure you can play all media files.

10. Enable Hyper-V

With Hyper-V you can run virtual machines on your workstation. This is useful if you want to run your tests on older OS versions. Enabling Hyper-V is easy

Server Manager > Roles > Hyper-V

Remember you need a Hyper-V enabled Windows 2008 licence and also your hardware has to support virtualization.

Also If you are using an existing VHD it may ask you to re-Activate Windows as it detected hardware changes.

One good thing about Windows Server 2008 is that it no longer asks for the i386 folder like Windows 2003 while you enable features.

& yea.. HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! :D

Via: The Way I See It

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

How to run Windows Server 2008 for 240 days without activation legally!

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:00:10 GMT

Microsoft published an article that describes in detail how to automatically extend the evaluation period for Windows Server 2008 to 240 days.

How to install Windows Server 2008 without activating it

1. Run the Windows Server 2008 Setup program.

2. When you are prompted to enter a product key for activation, do not enter a key. Click No when Setup asks you to confirm your selection.

3. You may be prompted to select the edition of Windows Server 2008 that you want to evaluate. Select the edition that you want to install.
Note After Windows Server 2008 is installed, the edition cannot be changed without reinstalling it.

4. When you are prompted, read the evaluation terms in the Microsoft Software License Terms, and then accept the terms.

5. When the Windows Server 2008 Setup program is finished, your initial 60-day evaluation period starts. To check the time that is left on your current evaluation period, run the Slmgr.vbs script that is in the System32 folder. Use the -dli switch to run this script. The slmgr.vbs -dli command displays the number of days that are left in the current 60-day evaluation period.

How to manually extend the evaluation period

When the initial 60-day evaluation period nears its end, you can run the Slmgr.vbs script to reset the evaluation period. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Command Prompt.

2. Type slmgr.vbs -dli, and then press ENTER to check the current status of your evaluation period.

3. To reset the evaluation period, type slmgr.vbs –rearm, and then press ENTER.

4. Restart the computer.

This resets the evaluation period to 60 days.

Follow the complete article here

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise - RTM Screenshots

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:54:25 GMT

Yesterday I installed Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and found the OS rock solid. The last build I tried before this was Release Candidate 0.

I have taken some screenshots from RTM (Build: 6001.18000.080118-1840) x86 version of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. Screenshots could be found in Photos section.

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Microsoft's Redmond HQ Gets Ready For Windows Server Launch

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 06:17:39 GMT

With the clock ticking toward its Feb. 27 product launch -- and cold, snowy weather blanketing its Redmond, Wash., campus -- Microsoft employees are battening down to get Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 out the door.

During a mid-January visit to Microsoft's headquarters, employees walked determinedly from one office building to another, where recently installed Starbucks coffee machines were in constant use. Ping-pong tables sat unused, and the company cafeteria was mostly empty. The campus baseball field and soccer pitch were more tundra than playgrounds.

With barely a month to go before its most important product launch since the release of Windows Vista a year ago, Microsoft still has some work to do. Microsoft has booked the time and the place -- the morning of Feb. 27 at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles -- for the official launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. But Visual Studio 2008, which shipped in November, is the only one of the three enterprise products that's actually in final shape.

Windows Server 2008 is in the near-final stages of testing now, the so-called escrow stage. Next comes what Bill Laing, general manager of Windows server development, calls the "break glass in case of emergency" stage, a week-long period during which Windows engineers scrutinize the new operating system one last time before they release it to manufacturing.

Windows Server 2008 is on track for RTM on or before Feb. 27. "We're pretty close," Laing says. "We're feeling very good about the release."

Continue At Source

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Windows Server 2008 RC2 Unlikely - Source

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:55:56 GMT

Windows Server 2008 is now close enough to being released to manufacturing that it's unlikely Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) will issue a third release candidate for the long awaited OS, according to a source close to the company.

Windows Server 2008 is currently in RTM "escrow," which means that the product team thinks the code is good to go but wants to tinker with it just a bit longer, said a source close to Microsoft, who requested anonymity. "There may very well not be an RC2," said the source.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined comment, saying only that Microsoft "is making good progress on Windows Server 2008" and is on track to launch it at the Feb. 27 launch event in Los Angeles, at which SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 will also be introduced.

Microsoft last August pushed the Windows Server 2008 RTM timeframe from the end of 2007 into Q1, but many industry observers chalked this up to Microsoft's desire to synchronize the release of Server 2008 with Vista service pack 1.

While Microsoft partners are excited about the imminent arrival of Windows Server 2008, some who've been burned by technical glitches with Windows Vista aren't exactly jumping up and down with excitement.

Jay Tipton, vice president at Technology Specialists, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based solution provider, doesn't expect a huge initial spike in adoption of Windows Server 2008 due to lingering fears of the Vista scenario repeating itself.

"I'm not going to be jumping on the bandwagon to start replacing Windows Server 2000 and 2003 with Server 2008. And I'm not going to start pushing Server 2008 until it has been out there a while," said Tipton.

But Alex Pearson, president and CEO of IS Systems, a San Antonio-based solution provider who has been testing Windows Server 2008 since the first beta release, expects Server 2008 to quickly gain acceptance in the market on the strength of its strong performance.

"I've been running beta under virtual machine on Virtual Server, and even though I've been trying to make it purposely sluggish by installing it on Celeron laptop, and having multiple people connect through terminal services, it still performs well," said Pearson.

Steven Mulka, a partner with SIS, a Duluth, Ga.-based solution provider, expects virtualization and the enhancements Microsoft has made to terminal services in Windows Server 2008 to be the tangible business benefits companies have been looking for to justify upgrading to Vista. "Businesses don't change their server software just for the sake of change, there have to be solid business reasons behind the decision," said Mulka.

The arrival of Windows Server 2008 will complete the framework for supporting the requirements of the Microsoft toolsets that are coming out, such as Visual Studio and SQL Server 2008, according to Mulka.

"That's a main driving factor, and companies will have to look at this and ask themselves whether they have the foundation to put in the newer products," he said.

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Windows Server 2008 is in Escrow! RTM build planned January 16th

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 23:45:00 GMT

Windows Server 2008 has gone into the final test stages: Escrow. If all goes well it is expected the RTM build bits to be delivered on January 16th. After that all the teams working on Windows have to "sign off" the build (till Jan 23rd)

The week after that there will be "media verification" whatever that may be and then the Release To Manufacturing on February 6th.

We already know Windows Server 2008 build is in sync with Windows Vista Service Pack 1, so do the math.

February 27th is the worldwide launch of Windows Server 2008 together with Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 in Los Angeles. There will be launch events around that day all over the world.

SQL Server 2008 has not yet RTMed yet on its launch day!

WSUS 3.0 sp1 can be expected in this time frame too.

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Microsoft makes November build of Windows Server 2008 available to testers

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:57:46 GMT

Microsoft didn’t release only a refreshed test build of Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 this week. It also quietly posted an updated test build of Windows Server 2008.

Testers with pre-approved access to Microsoft’s private Connect download site can grab the Windows Server 2008 November Community Technology Preview (for both X86 and X64 machines). The build number is 6001-17042-071107-1618.

No word yet from testers on what’s new in the latest Windows Server 2008 build. It’s not yet quite Release Candidate (RC) 1, but the Softies are getting closer.

Microsoft has said to expect Windows Server 2008 to be released to manufacturing in the first calendar quarter of 2008. Windows Server 2008 will ship in eight flavors, some of which will include Microsoft’s integrated Hyper-V hypervisor, and others which won’t, Microsoft announced earlier this week.

Given that the new Vista SP1 build and this server refresh came out simultaneously, I’m wondering about any new features in the SP1 build that touch Windows Server 2008. I’ve asked Microsoft for comment on what’s in the newest Windows Server 2008 CTP, but no word back yet.

Continue At Source

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Linux Losing Market Share to Windows Server

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:07:57 GMT

Linux growth in the U.S. x86 server market has, over the past six quarters, started to falter and reverse its positive course relative to Windows Server and the market as a whole.

The annual rate at which Linux is growing in the x86 server space has fallen from around 53 percent in 2003, when Windows Server growth was in the mid-20 percent range, to a negative 4 percent growth in calendar year 2006, IDC Quarterly Server Tracker figures show.

Over the same time period, Windows has continued to report positive annual growth, outpacing the total growth rate in the x86 market by more than 4 percent in 2006, indicating that Linux has actually lost market share to Windows Server over this time.

The same holds true for worldwide Linux x86 server shipments, which dropped from the huge annual growth rate of about 45 percent is 2003 to growth of less than 10 percent in 2006, the IDC figures show.

One of the biggest reasons for this is that the migrations from Unix to Linux have slowed down markedly.

Experts say that migrations from Unix to Linux have slowed down because all the low-hanging fruit has now been picked.

"We have seen the rate of migration from Unix slow over the past few quarters," IDC analyst Matt Eastwood told eWEEK. "In my view this is because much of the low-hanging fruit has been moved and the applications that remain on Unix are stickier because they are seen as business critical and more political candidates for migration overall."

IDC analyst Al Gillen pointed out that the number of servers shipped does not perfectly equal the number of operating systems in the market. This is particularly the case with Linux where a substantial portion of the overall market opportunity comes from deployments aboard recycled servers, PCs and workstations deployed as servers, and Linux deployed as a guest operating system.

"This does not contradict any trending taking place on server hardware," Gillen said.

He added: "But we do need to remember that the Linux software ecosystem does not track exactly the same as does x86 hardware shipments."

Margaret Lewis, the director of commercial solutions for AMD in Austin, Texas, has also noticed the slowdown in Linux growth over the past few quarters.

In 2000, Windows comprised about half of the server operating system market, followed by Unix and Netware at about 17 percent each and Linux reaching towards 10 percent, she said, noting that today Windows owns about 70 percent, Linux about 20 percent, with Unix below 10 percent and Netware barely registering.

"Looking at these large operating system market swings, you could draw the conclusion that Linux has gotten the 'low-hanging fruit' in terms of migration," Lewis said.

"Without the larger pool of Unix and NetWare users who are ripe for migration, there is not quite the level of fuel. You could assume that Linux is now ready to settle down to a more regular growth curve representative of a more mature technology."

The fact that Windows has maintained a steady growth rate over this same time frame could be the result of companies expanding their Windows-based IT infrastructure to meet the demands of users who always want to be online, she said.

"Windows-based Web hosting sites are experiencing strong growth, the Exchange infrastructure is expanding to offer unified messaging and many small businesses are moving to a real server infrastructure for basic infrastructure instead of a network of desktops," Lewis said.

Bill Hilf, general manager of Windows Server marketing and platform strategy at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., has also noticed these trends, and says that increased customer adoption of Windows Server 2003 in a broad range of enterprise scenarios is driving significant growth of that business.

"I spend a lot of time talking with both Linux and Windows customers and partners, and the feedback that I hear is that, in volume, Linux is primarily deployed in two workloads—high-performance computing and as Web servers," Hilf told eWEEK.

"It appears that Linux server growth is moderating considerably and, while it's certainly still a player, it's not being considered across the broad range of workloads that Windows Server is, from ERP to CRM to messaging and collaboration to core infrastructure like file and print," he said.

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)

Apache looses share to IIS again, never been so close

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:10:16 GMT

In the October 2007 survey we received responses from 142,805,398 sites, an increase of 7.6 million sites since last month. This continues the strong gains seen last month, a rate of over 5% monthly growth, with MySpace, Microsoft Live.com, and Google's Blogger each gained over 1 million sites this month. Benefitting from the gains at MySpace and Microsoft Live, Microsoft-IIS now hosts over 50 million sites.

Apache loses 2.8% share this month, partly through the strong growth at the major blogging systems, and partly due to 2.5 million domains on Apache expiring at trouble-free.net. Apache has around a 10% market share advantage over IIS now, which is the smallest gap between the two since IIS was launched in 1996.

On the active sites measure which excludes templated sites, Apache gains 1 million sites this month, though this is eclipsed by growth of nearer 3 million for Microsoft-IIS.

Read this report in full details with graphical analysis here.

Taimur Asad (The Microsoft "Wow" Blog!)