• For German speaking readers: My pro Vista article has been published at Computerwoche #
• Windows Installer 4.5 versions: http://snurl.com/2ee5m #
• Be careful with RODCs under Server 2008. The fact that there is a compatibilty pack isn’t a good sign if you ask me. http://snurl.com/2ee68 #
• Microsoft Forefront Integration Kit for Network Access Protection (NAP). Sounds interesting. http://snurl.com/2ee6k #
• Didn’t know that Vista and Server 2008 allow you to resize a disk. Could be useful when you clone an installation. http://snurl.com/2ee84 #
• Microsoft Security Assessment Tool 3.5. I must admit I only used this tool once. I guess I prefer to read on the Web. http://snurl.com/2ee8j #

Microsoft published a couple of new step-by-step guides for Windows Server 2008. At least it seems so if you take the publishing date on the download page seriously (3/18/2008). However, many of them were already published in 2007 when Server 2008 was still in beta. This wouldn’t be a problem if the contents of the papers are still valid. This seems not always to be the case, though.

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Windows Server 2008 RTM has been out out for some days now. I suppose only the adventurous are running it already in a productive environment. Even if you’re not planning to deploy Windows Server 2008 in the near future, I recommend having a look at its new features now. Who knows, maybe there are one or two features that might convince you to install Microsoft’s latest server OS earlier than planned.

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I am somewhat surprised that Windows Server 2008 RTM came out before Vista SP1. You might have read my rant against “Windows Vista SP1 RTM”, yesterday. In my view, Vista SP1 wasn’t “released” yet. I read on several sites that Server 2008 is avaiable for MSDN and Technet subscribers. I just logged on with our account, but I only found the release candidate on MSDN and on Microsoft’s sites for Volume Licensing customers it didn’t show up at all.

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Some days ago, I discussed a couple of features that only come into play if Vista and Server 2008 work together. Today, I stumbled across another Microsoft page listing several of these features. Unfortunately, it also contains features that are available as extensions for Windows XP. However, some of them seem to be Vista/2008 only features.

First of all, I should note that I was quite surprised how difficult it is to find out what these “better-together features” really are. Microsoft’s marketing texts give hints, but they also do their best to disguise the real benefits of Vista+Server 2008. Journalists tend to just copy Microsoft, often without really understanding what it is all about.

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The adoption of Windows Vista in corporate environments is probably not as fast as Microsoft had hoped for. The question is, can Windows Server 2008 accelerate Vista adoption after it’s released? This certainly depends on the features that can only be used if you deploy Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista together. In this post, I examine all these features I am aware of.

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Some days ago, I mentioned that there are rumors that Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 might come out on January 16^th. Well, as it turned out now, those were nothing other than rumors, even though they were spread by usually well-informed sources. InfoWeek reports that the original time schedule is still valid. That is, Windows Server 2008 will probably be released at the end of February.

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Another year of blogging on 4sysops passed by. It was a good year. The number of page views doubled and so did the number of subscribers. So I say thank you to my loyal readers, especially to those who didn’t agree with me often. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might be interested to know which articles have been read most often.

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Windows Weekly has a nice webcast about Windows Server 2008. Paul Thurrott interviews Ward Ralston, group technical product manager for Windows Server 2008. The whole interview is about 50 minutes and gives a good overview for those who didn’t have time yet to deal with Microsoft’s new server OS. You can listen to it while playing with your Xmas presents. Merry Christmas to all Christians and a Merry Tuesday to the rest of the world!

You can download Windows Server 2008 RC1 now. Its most interesting new feature is the Group Policy Preferences. Microsoft integrated PolicyMaker in Windows 2008, a tool from DesktopStandard. They acquired this company in 2006. I had a quick look at it today and I must say it is an absolute killer feature.

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