Microsoft Releases Windows Vista SP1, Server 2008 to Manufacturing
IT News Online Staff
2008-02-05
Microsoft Corp. announced that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) has been released to manufacturing and will be available to customers in March 2008, starting with enterprise customers on Microsoft Volume Licenses.
The company has also released to manufacturing Windows Server 2008 code-named "Longhorn", which will be available for purchase to new customers on March 1, 2008.
Windows Vista SP 1 includes quality improvements that help enhance reliability, security and performance. SP1 contains changes focused on addressing specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. SP1 also continues to make it easier for IT administrators to deploy and manage Windows Vista.
The full list of these updates can be read in Hotfixes and Security Updates included in Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Whitepapers on SP1 overview and notable changes, and the deployment guide is available at http://technet.microsoft.com/
With Windows Server 2008 releasing to manufacturers, Microsoft has made tools, training and resources available to customers and partners to help make it easier and faster to deploy or build upon the new operating system. The company said the response from IT professionals and developers has been strong as it moves toward the worldwide launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 on February 27.
IT professionals face increasing pressure from rapidly changing technology, increasing costs and security concerns, and expanding business needs. Windows Server 2008 helps alleviate these pressures by automating daily management tasks, tightening security, improving efficiency and increasing availability. It also offers virtualization solutions that will enable IT professionals to reduce costs, increase hardware utilization, optimize their infrastructure, and improve server availability.
As Windows Server 2008 was developed in tandem with the Windows Vista code base, it has most of that operating system's advanced management and security features, such as integrated Network Access Protection (NAP) and Group Policy. Customers will also see systemwide performance improvements from an integrated system architecture, including network file sharing, managed quality of service and reduced power consumption. Common tools and processes across both operating systems will result in efficiencies for IT organizations.
Microsoft is also offering customers a Go Live License, which permits them to deploy beta releases of Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS 7.0) into live production. So far, 28 companies worldwide have created and launched hosted offerings using this program, and hundreds more have downloaded the Windows Server 2008 beta and begun testing.
With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft is also embracing PHP hosting on Windows via the FastCGI module for IIS 7.0. PHP is a popular open-source scripting language used to build dynamic Web applications. This allows IT Professionals to host PHP and ASP.net applications side by side. As a result, the PHP community will be able to take advantage of the increased reliability of PHP on Windows and simplified administration available on the Windows platform.
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.
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