Windows Archive

Microsoft's long-awaited Windows Server 2003 R2, the update to Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, is finally generally available, the company said on Feb. 1. This widespread availability follows the December 2005 release to manufacturing of the final code for this server software. Microsoft customers will now be able to buy Windows Server 2003 R2 pre-installed on hardware through companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, and Microsoft's enterprise Software Assurance customers will get their Windows Server 2003 R2 updates in the near future.

Microsoft will omit anti-virus protection in Vista, the next version of Windows, which it plans to ship late this year. As with previous versions of Windows dating back to Windows 2000 at least, Redmond is promoting Vista as a landmark improvement in Windows security. Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's platform products and services division, told reseller magazine CRN that safety and security, improved user experience, and mobility features will be key additions in Vista. But there will be no anti-virus software, the Windows development supremo said during a questions and answers session with CRN. For unspecified business (not technical) reasons, Microsoft will sell anti-virus protection to consumers through its OneCare online backup and security service.

Customers and partners who've been holding their breath waiting for Beta 2 of Windows Vista before getting serious about testing Microsoft's next-generation operating system can exhale. There will be no single, catch-all Beta 2 of Vista, according to Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platform Products & Services Division. Instead, Microsoft is planning to rely increasingly on CTP builds to get its feedback from Windows testers. Elsehwere, Allchin said you should buy Vista for its security enhancements.

This is already a fairly old article, but I'm pretty confident it never made OSNews' front page. In this article, the author proves that Windows XP can be installed, and 'run', on processors with as little as 8MHz. "The target of this project was to find the weakest system where you can run Windows XP. Keep in mind, that Microsoft official requirements are a CPU with 233 MHz an 64 MB of RAM. But that had to be beaten!"

In an interesting turn of events, Microsoft has said that the current Aero interface in the latest Vista build (the December CTP) is not the final UI, saying: "There are going to be GUI changes in Vista by the time the final release comes." However, not too long ago they claimed the current Aero UI was final. Will the real Microsoft developer please stand up?

"Shobana Balakrishnan, a program manager on the Windows Longhorn Server team, takes us through the server roadmap and demonstrates Windows Server 2003 R2. Think you know everything about Windows Server? You might be surprised by the innovations this team has shipped and is planning on shipping in Longhorn Server."

Microsoft is to open up the source code behind its server communication protocols, in an attempt to get the European Commission off its back. The announcement covers the source code behind the communication protocols for Windows Workgroup Server and Windows Desktop. Microsoft already offers 12000 pages of technical documents and 500 hours of free technical support to anyone applying for a license. Companies making software which interacts with Microsoft servers use those licences to make their products work properly with Microsoft ones. Such license-holders will now also get to look at the source code, but will not have the right to publish the code or include it in their own products.

"Within the next few weeks, Microsoft will be releasing beta 2 of Windows Vista. The actual ship date of Vista hasn't been announced, but Microsoft's new OS is likely to ship sometime this Fall. Since Windows Vista was announced, some of the bleeding-edge features have been scaled back. For example, WinFS, a file system built using relational database concepts, won't be included in the final release. But it's likely that the Windows Vista's feature list is now stable enough that we can predict what kind of system you'll need to build today to accommodate the new OS."

The personification of the duality-in-man, Paul Thurrot, takes a look at Windows Live. "In this article, I'll examine the genesis of Windows Live, and take a look at how Microsoft plans to capitalize on the integration of Windows with various Web-based services and products. Then, I'll briefly examine each of the Windows Live services that the company plans to ship this year, saving full reviews of each service for their eventual ship dates."

Microsoft has changed the code-name for the next version of Windows after Vista from 'Blackcomb' to 'Vienna', according to company evangelist and blogger Robert Scoble. Blackcomb was named back in 2000, when Windows XP was still known as Whistler. But Microsoft says it needed a name that fit the 'Vista' theme.

Microsoft on Wednesday gave developers access to a key piece of Windows Vista, months ahead of the operating system's release. The company posted near-final versions of two software development technologies that are part of WinFX, the underlying programming model being introduced with Vista, which is slated to ship late this year. The release is "a significant checkpoint" on the road toward delivery of the company's new programming model since it allows developers to build and deploy applications on their core production systems, according to Ari Bixhorn, director of Web services strategy at Microsoft.

"Monad, also known more formally as the MSH Command Shell, is a next generation Windows command shell. Built on top of the .NET Framework, MSH provides a powerful infrastructure for the automation of a wide range of administrative tasks. At last, the command line is a first-class citizen in the world of Windows system management."

Microsoft has shipped the first critical security update for Windows Vista, the next version of its flagship operating system. Over the weekend, the company released patches for beta testers running the Windows Vista December CTP and Windows Vista Beta 1, and warned that the new operating system was vulnerable to a remote code execution flaw in the Graphics Rendering Engine.

Today virtualization is expensive for licensing. Microsoft asks people to license every OS installed on virtual machines, even if powered off. But something is changing. Since the release of Windows Server 2003 R2 Microsoft started approaching a per-use licensing model instead of a per-installation model. So that now Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition owners can run up to 4 virtual machines with same OS at no additional costs.