Microsoft yesterday continued its hand-in-hand development of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista's first service pack, publishing release candidates (RC) for each product.

The big updates in Windows 2008 RC1 revolve around enhancements to Group Policy, a management framework first introduced in Windows 2000 Server. Group Policy Preferences, as it has been renamed, was formerly known as PolicyMaker Standard Edition and Policy Share Manager. The main benefits of Preferences appear to be more granularity for admins and simplified administration through reduced complexity of configuration scripts.

The release of RC1 means that Windows 2008 is essentially feature complete, with only very minor tweaks made going forward. Tina Couch, who described herself as the "newest member to the Windows Server team," blogged that Windows 2008 will be released to manufacturing (RTM) by the date of the "Global Launch Wave" on Feb. 27.

In an interesting side note, the Launch Wave itself has undergone a name change, now called "Heroes Happen Here." Couch claimed that it's the "largest enterprise launch in history, a whopping $150 million+ worldwide for outreach and demand generation to IT Pros and developers."

Vista SP1 is at the same stage of development as Windows 2008, and most of the changes since the most recent beta release concern installation issues. Vista Product Manager Nick White, on Microsoft's Vista team blog, wrote that the changes include:

    * Significantly smaller installer packages, reduced in some cases by half
    * Reduced disk space needs to install the SP
    * Better cleanup and deletion of files used for the install
    * Bug fixes to smooth the install process
    * More built-in guidance on how to install

White also added that Microsoft intends to "complete and release" SP1 in Q1 next year, putting it on nearly the identical release path as Windows 2008.

Since Windows 2008 and Vista SP1 share most of the same codebase, it makes sense to keep the releases close together, since getting the codebases too out of sync can cause problems. In an earlier story about delays in the Windows 2008 rollout timetable, analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group speculated about the delay. "From the standpoint of servers, Microsoft would rather have [Windows 2008] at [Vista] SP1 level when it ships," Enderle said in late August.

Vista RC1 was made available today to TechNet and MSDN subscribers. White said that it will be available publicly next week on the Microsoft Download Center.

Both Windows 2008 and Vista SP1 have been hit hard by delays. Windows 2008, formerly code-named "Longhorn," has been in development for years, and has had a number of major features altered or completely eliminated; even then, its ship date kept slipping until the Global Launch Wave date was announced. Vista SP1 is a much-anticipated release for Microsoft, as corporations typically wait until the first service pack is released for a product before it's deemed stable enough to roll out on the network.

Vista could use a boost, as its sales figures have sagged well below expectations since its release early this year.

The other products scheduled to be announced at the launch event in Los Angeles include SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.

Microsoft on Friday launched Service Pack 1 for Windows Exchange Server 2007. Features include additions to the Exchange management console, Outlook web access and disaster recovery.

Disaster recovery features already in Windows Exchange Server 2007 include Local Continuous Replication and Cluster Continuous Replication. SP1 introduces Standby Continuous Replication, which allows replication between geographically dispersed areas. Data created in one place can be copied to other areas so that, in the event of failure or disaster, data from the other areas can be recovered automatically.

However, replication will not happen automatically. "Restore after failure will be a manual process," said Microsoft's Mark Deakin, product manager for unified communications. "It has to be manual because it is two separate pieces of data."

Another new feature in the Exchange Server 2007 SP1 is a closer tie with Office Communications Server, with the ability to move voice mail between the two and control a greater variety of mobile devices. "There are lots more mobile devices you can connect as well," said Deakin.

Forefront Security for Exchange Server is now included, as is support for multiple scanning engines from more security firms. These can be implemented in a single module, Microsoft said.

Microsoft claims it has more than 3,000 companies as customers, representing more than a million seats now working with Exchange Server 2007. More than 270,000 people tested out the beta of SP1, the company said.

Microsoft and its partners say the adoption cycle for Windows Vista is still in the early stages, particularly for businesses -- many of which are likely waiting for the release of Service Pack 1. Likewise, many businesses need to upgrade their hardware to run Vista, which is a major proposition. For consumers, this holiday season is the first in which Vista-loaded computers will be on store shelves.

Still, one year after Vista and Office were launched for businesses, some headlines today might have some people at Microsoft cringing.

There's this, from CNET, on a Qualys study that shows a major increase in Microsoft flaws between 2006 and 2007. "We have seen a huge jump in the vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office products," Amol Sawate, manager of Qualys' vulnerability-management lab, told CNET. "These charts show growth of nearly 300 percent from 2006 to 2007, primarily in new Excel vulnerabilities that can easily be exploited by getting unsuspecting users to open Excel files sent via e-mail and instant message."

And the AP's locally based correspondent covering Microsoft, Jessica Mintz, has this report on tests showing that an updated Windows XP will perform faster next year than Vista. Key passage:

    [The testers] found the original Vista performed 50 percent to 100 percent slower than the prevalent XP Service Pack 2, or SP2.

    Vista SP1, due out in the first quarter of 2008, barely improved the operating system's performance.

    But XP SP3, scheduled for the first half of 2008, did improve on XP's earlier performance, running 10 percent faster than SP2.

Microsoft says its too early to make such comparisons.

In the first major Windows Server announcement since its worldwide partner conference in July, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) offered a substantive look into its server virtualization and pricing strategy.

Monday at the TechEd IT Forum in Barcelona, Microsoft announced that its widely awaited server virtualization technology, previously code-named Viridian, will hereafter be known as Hyper-V.

Microsoft also unveiled plans to offer 8 different SKUs for Windows 2008, three of which will ship with Hyper V:

• Windows Server 2008 includes one virtual instance per license and sells for $999 (with 5 Client Access Licenses).
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise includes four virtual instances per license and sells for $3,999 with 25 CALs.
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter includes unlimited virtual instances per license and sells for $2,999 per processor.

Microsoft, which is also selling Hyper V as a $28 standalone offering for Linux and Unix machines, will ship a beta version of Hyper V along with Windows Server 2008.

Then, in the second half of next year Microsoft will push out the final version of Hyper V through Windows Update, said Andy Lees, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Server and Tools Marketing and Solutions group.

"Like any beta technology, we don't recommend using Hyper V in production until the final bits are released," said Lees.

Lees noted that Microsoft used the same approach with the release of clustering technology in SQL Server 2005. "Releasing a non-production copy in the SQL 2005 release worked out well because we were able to gather feedback, and then the final bits were of an even higher quality," Lees said.

While previous Microsoft announcements of new product versions and licensing have been somewhat confusing, the vendor has been pretty clear about its server virtualization intentions, says Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing, an Oakland, Calif.-based Microsoft Gold partner.

Microsoft also announced the general availability of System Center Configuration Manager 2007, System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007, all of which provide important management functions for server virtualization.

"From a management standpoint, it's important to have a top-to-bottom view of the entire virtualization infrastructure," said Lees.

Microsoft said that it's giving away Search Server 2008 Express in release candidate form to anyone who wants it, just by downloading directly from Microsoft's Web site here. The Express version is the sibling to the enterprise-strength version of Microsoft Search Server 2008, which the company debuted at an enterprise search conference in San Jose, Calif.

According to a press release issued by the company, Search Server 2008 Express packages up the enterprise search capabilities found in SharePoint Server 2007. With it come free connectors for searching among data and documents in EMC's Documentum and IBM's Filenet document management systems. Microsoft says that it's working with other partners to provide more connectors and federated search features that support the OpenSearch standard.

Jonathan Kauffman, general manager of Microsoft's Enterprise Search group, points to several other key features of the Express version in his blog: "relevancy tuning, security-trimmed search results and great out-of-the-box administration and reporting." What's also noteworthy, says Kauffman, is that Express also imposes no limits to the number of documents that can be indexed and searched.

Microsoft Search Server 2008 itself will be available to the general public in January, and only to Microsoft's volume licensing program customers; that version, according to the press release, adds enterprise deployment and scalability options.

To read more about Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express, click here. To read about partners developing federated search connectors that will work with Search Server, go here.