Stories by: Jonathan Hassell

Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled its work on Windows 7, the successor to Vista, to a crowd at the Professional Developers Conference that was salivating for information on what's new in the updated operating system. A lot of sites will take you through the whiz-bang consumer-friendly features, but you might be wondering as an IT professional what Windows 7 has to offer you.

On Tuesday, Microsoft released to manufacturing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. The final code will be shipped on November 1. The company bills the software as one-stop organization, allowing administrators to set up and deploy new virtual machines and manage hosts and other virtual infrastructure elements from one console.

There has been a dearth of conveniently packaged servers for the midsize market. HP decided to try to change that with the introduction of the HP BladeSystem c3000. I recently tested a well-equipped unit, and overall, my impressions are positive.

Recently, Microsoft released its second release candidate build, RC1, of Windows Essential Business Server, or EBS, a midmarket server solution for businesses with 50 to 300 users and computers.

Last week, Microsoft released its virtualization product, Hyper-V, to manufacturing. Previously, the company had promised to make a production-supported version of Hyper-V available to Windows Server 2008 customers within 180 days of the official release of the operating system itself. By releasing Hyper-V in late June, Microsoft beat its self-imposed deadline by about a month, although delivering less than was originally promised.

Secure Sockets Layer virtual private networks are commonly used when easy access to corporate applications is required to be offered to partners, remote employees, and other people and businesses that aren't necessarily trusted enough to be granted access to your corporate networks.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has been released in a staggered fashion to a variety of channels, and Windows XP Service Pack 3 is right around the corner. So why should you care if you're also considering adopting Windows Server 2008? How do the respective service packs fit into the overall design?

Windows has never enjoyed the powerful shell scripting environments that its Unix rivals have long included. That's changed now with the inclusion of PowerShell, Microsoft's command-line shell and scripting language, in Windows Server 2008 and a passel of other Microsoft server products as well.

Microsoft announced Wednesday that Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Server 2008 has been released to the public. This near-final test build of the server release incorporates a couple of new features and what is sure to be deemed an "enhancement" to the community. In this piece, I'll take a look at the new capabilities in Group Policy, and an update to Windows Genuine Advantage, that were introduced with RC1.

Since Windows Vista has been released to the public, there has been a lot of confusion and hype surrounding some of the licensing decisions and restrictions with which Microsoft Corp. saddled the operating system and its many versions. Additionally, there's a new type of product key and a volume key management system that you might not know about. In this article, I'll take a look at five distinct points about Vista licensing and key management and give you the most current answers to what I've found are the most common questions about those topics.