Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 are soup
Microsoft is done with Windows Server 2008 and released it to manufacturing, as of February 4. Ditto with Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the RTM (release to manufacturing) milestones for both Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 during his annual Strategic Update for Wall Street on February 4 shortly thereafter.
Today at 5 a.m. PST on the company's Redmond campus, Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 held its sign-off party. (No word on what the Vista folks did to celebrate. Guess that's a non-disclosure-agreement-protected secret, like everything is these days on the client side of the Microsoft house.)
I've asked Microsoft when the final bits will be available to customers for download. No word back yet. It looks like late February/early March. Here's the official Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 availability statement:
"Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released to manufacturing today and will start being available to customers in March, starting with Microsoft Volume Licensing customers. Windows Server 2008 was also released to manufacturing today and will be available for purchase to new customers on March 1. Microsoft Volume Licensing customers with active Microsoft Software Assurance coverage or an Enterprise Agreement will be able to download the server software toward the end of February as part of the joint Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 'Heroes Happen Here' launch event."
Technically, Windows Server 2008 has been "done" since Microsoft delivered Release Candidate (RC) 1, said Program Manager Alex Hinrichs, the guy who oversees the Windows Server ship room. (I had a chance to chat with Hinrichs on Friday last week, when I was visiting Microsoft in Redmond.)
Microsoft released a public test build of Windows Server 2008 RC1 in early December 2007. Since that time, the Server team has been running suites of stress and reliability tests on the product, and waiting for reports from inside or outside the company of any major bugs that could stop the show.
The past month's been pretty darn quiet, Hinrichs said. Server is passing all its tests with flying colors, including the all-important "gut" test.
"This is the most tested version of Server we've ever done. Everyone on the team is feeling great about it," Hinrichs said.
Microsoft's marketing folks have been touting a long list of features in Microsoft's latest server release. I asked Hinrichs what he considers to be the product's three major selling points. On his short list:
* Windows Server Core: Because it will have the minimum number of bits, the Core version of Windows Server will require fewer patches. This is the guts of the product for folks who don't need pretty interfaces and all the bells an whistles.
* Network Access Protection (NAP): NAP is the capability to quarantine, via preset "network health" settings, machines before allowing them to join a network. NAP won't be rolled back to older versions of Windows Server, so if you want it, you'll need to move to the latest server release.
* Read-only domain controller functionality: Hinrichs said RODC will be a killer feature for users with branch-office configurations who want to lock down remote systems from a security standpoint. RODC also will help improve remote log-on times, Microsoft has said.
Windows Server 2008, simply because it's a server product, will have longer sales cycle than Windows client releases. There already are doubters out there predicting Windows Server 2008 will "flop" like Vista did. What do you think? Will Windows Server 2008 be a must-have upgrade? Why or why not?