Corporate customers and software developers were unable to access Microsoft’s MSDN benefits portal for much of today. The portal provides MSDN subscribers with access to downloads of Microsoft products and license keys. Although Microsoft has not issued a statement about the problem, the problem came to light in The Hypervisor Lab when one of our […]

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Virtualisation management specialist Vizioncore showed a beta version of its vRanger Pro 4 backup suite to attendees at the VMworld conference in Las Vegas today. The new software, which is due to be launched later this year, includes support for Microsoft’s PowerShell scripting language. Scott Herold, chief architect at Vizioncore, said, “We’re very excited about […]

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Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, launched on October 16th, enables corporate IT departments to provide telephones, instant messaging and web based conferencing to users located anywhere in the world. We don’t expect many firms to rip out their existing communications infrastructures, but organisations moving into new premises should consider OCS alongside other VoIP and traditional […]

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By Roger Howorth Late last year Microsoft launched Office Communications Server (OCS) 2008 and Office Communicator 2007, the complementary desktop client for the new server suite. If nothing else, the pair could be used as a bargaining tool to help reduce the costs of office telecoms. If you haven’t seen them yet, they’re well worth […]

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After years of planning and development, Microsoft made the first supported version of its Hyper-V virtualisation software available for download today. Bill Laing, general manager of the Windows Server Division, told The Hypervisor, “The final release to manufacturing (RTM) version of Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 will be available for download from 8pm BST tonight. […]

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While Microsoft is preparing to launch Windows Server 2008 I’m left wondering about licensing the new software. Let’s hope that the license management tools are an improvement on those in Windows Server 2003. Recently I heard about a firm using Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services that had run into a nasty problem. Messages were popping […]

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The new Server Core feature in Windows Server 2008 enables Microsoft to compete head to head with open-source Linux as a platform for running Linux and Unix server software. Windows Server Core is a new text based operating mode in Windows Server 2008 that resembles the non-graphical console used by most Linux server systems. Server […]

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The first thing we noticed about Windows Server 2008 is that installation is generally much simpler than with previous versions. As the forthcoming WS2008 is not yet supported by VMware, we created a Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition virtual machine (VM) using VMware Workstation 5.5.5. Having done this, we booted the new VM with our […]

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Windows Server 2008 really does promise to be the best version yet. For example, it includes the option of installing a system that does not include the Windows GUI, which should dramatically reduce the number of patches needed throughout the system’s lifetime. Also, new server roles make it easier than ever to configure a system […]

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Launched last November, Virtual Machine Manager 2007 is part of Microsoft’s System Center suite of datacentre management tools. Although the current version can manage only virtual machines (VMs) running on Microsoft Virtual Server, a forthcoming update, due by the end of the year, will also manage VMs running on VMware ESX Server and XenSource systems, […]

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