Beta's & Testing
We test quite a lot of Microsoft products as well as others. This is
where we will try and provide any useful information on these products
along with bugs and solutions.
Windows Home Server
Windows Home Server has now been released to OEM's and full systems
should be in the shops soon.
We have been testing WHS for a while and have found it to be quite useful,
especially for the home user that stores a lot of photo's, music & video.
The main advantage of the WHS is that you can use an old PC as a stand-alone
base unit with no monitor, keyboard or mouse required. Just put it in
a cupboard and leave it running. Access can be through any PC or laptop
and controlled using the WHS console. For the home user that just wants
a laptop out and everything else hidden away this is a great product.
You can share music, photo's, video's, documents and a great feature
that allows regular backups to the WHS of any PC or laptop connected
to the network. We would recommend a wireless network as this provide
the freedom to move around, but still have full access to everything.
Microsoft have provided a domain name service that allows remote access
to your home server from anywhere over the internet. This allows not
only access to storage, but to everything on your home network.
Server 2008 (Longhorn)
We have spent some time recently having a look at the features that
make up Server 2008 and could not have been more impressed. The range
of feature and the ease of implementation made it a joy to use. All
the components can be setup using wizards which makes it so easy. For
those who prefer scripts and complete control there is a powershell
and command controls. There is a selection of pre-made scripts and a
complete selection of tools to make your own. We had it setup very quickly
and encoutered very few niggles. We even managed to install every item
(both features and roles) on one machine just using the wizards. The
only items that did not work was purely down to it being beta 3. The
whole operating system feels clean and fresh, with some vista features
thrown in to help provide this feel.
Microsoft appear to have taken a bit of time with this operating system
and have provided a nice selection of resources. There is a
TechNet site with a library, downloads and technical details on
all parts of Server 2008. There is also a
Learning portal with both e-learning & training online and off.
Other resources are available in the form of e-Books, books, clinics,
courses in your area. There is a large range of
Microsoft certifications available for the Server 2008 and associated
subjects.
One of the best features which we haven't had the opertunity to use
is the virtualization, this is because it is only on the 64 bit version
and we ran the 32. However we have already experianced the advantages
of the Microsoft Virtualization as we have run the Microsoft 2007 Virtual
Server and run the PC version on our machines and will defenately be
running on out 2008 Server when it is released. So we can speak from
experiance. If you want to experinace Server 2008 yourself then go to
the
Microsoft Server 2008 web site and you are given a choice of installation
type and even a virtual option that allows you to run in on you present
machine in virtual mode.
Server
2008 main page
Server 2008 Key features
Virtualization in 2008
Virtualization key features
We have many links to Microsoft and if you want others please see our
Microsoft page
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