Useful Links: April 2009

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A list of items I’ve come across recently that I found potentially useful, interesting, or just plain funny:

Windows 7 release candidate: what’s new?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Earlier today, the Windows 7 release candidate (RC) was released and almost as soon as the download link was available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers, the site went into meltdown… something tells me that this unanticipated demand is not simply bad planning, but another opportunity to say how Windows 7 is generating unprecedented interest… or maybe I’m just a cynic!

Meanwhile, the RC is also available to beta testers on Microsoft Connect (with the Windows Virtual PC bits too – more details on them coming soon but, for now, take a look at the new Virtual PC website). I have the images sitting in the Microsoft File Transfer Download Manager, but nothing is moving right now (and I’m in Microsoft’s Offices in Reading today where there ought to be a decent connection!)

My advice would be to sit tight for a day or so and wait for the initial demand to subside as, unlike the beta, there is no limit to the total number of downloads for the RC. There are a few more things that might be useful to know:

  • There is one release candidate release, with all the capabilities of the Windows 7 Ultimate SKU, available in both 32- and 64-bit editions.
  • New product IDs are required in order to run the Windows 7 RC.
  • The Windows 7 RC will expire on 1 March 2010 after which the system will reboot every two hours. The license will expire on 1 June 2010.
  • By default, beta (build 7000) systems cannot be upgraded to the release candidate. There is a workaround but it’s not recommended. Microsoft’s advice is to either upgrade from a Windows Vista image, or to perform a custom (clean) installation. Users who wish to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 on the same computer will need to perform a custom (clean) installation. The Windows Easy Transfer Wizard can be used to identify, backup and transfer files and settings (more details can be found in the Windows Client Tech Center).
  • The Windows 7 Feedback Tool is a pre-release only tool and is not exposed in the release candidate; however bugs can be submitted by using the following command: rundll32.exe FeedbackTool.dll,ShowWizard. At this time, Microsoft is only looking for bug reports on the following subjects: issues that prevent installation or upgrade; issues that involve corruption or data loss; security issues; regressions from beta (things worked in beta but do not work now); any application or device issues that would prevent the use of Windows 7 as a primary operating system; reproducible crashes or hangs (issues that cannot be reproduced will be captured by the CEIP telemetry).

I’ve already posted details of the new features in the Windows Server 2008 R2 RC, so what’s new in Windows 7? The press release has full details but, cutting through the marketing, this is what’s new in the RC:

  • Remote Media Streaming. Enables highly secure, remote Internet access to home-based digital media libraries from another Windows 7-based PC outside the home.
  • Windows XP Mode (beta – actually not in the RC package, but available separately). Windows XP Mode uses Windows Virtual PC to allow Windows 7 users to run many Windows XP applications but launch them from the Windows 7 desktop.
  • Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (again, a separate download that’s “available soon”). This is intended to help enable a smooth transition by analysing PCs in preparation for a Windows 7 upgrade.

There were also enhancements made to existing features from the beta, based on customer feedback including:

  • Refined navigation. Several enhancements to the Windows taskbar, JumpLists and search to improve navigating the operating system and finding information.
  • Internet Explorer 8. InPrivate browsing in Internet Explorer 8 prevents browsing history, temporary Internet files, form data, cookies, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser. With Windows 7, InPrivate sessions and new tabs can be started from the JumpList.
  • Windows Touch. Controlling the computer by touching a touch-enabled screen or monitor is a core Windows 7 user experience. Improvements in the RC include several Windows Touch updates, including the ability to drag, drop and select items with touch, even inside Web sites that scroll both horizontally and vertically.

So, that’s a quick summary of what’s new in the RC… if you’re lucky then you’ll be able to get a copy in time for the weekend.

[Update 16:20: I restarted the download manager and the bits have started to flow… still no access to the TechNet subscriber downloads though.]

[Update 17:55: everything’s slowed down now… I guess TechNet must be back up and there are a lot of people competing for that bandwidth! I’m off home now and I’ll finish the download there.]

[Update 3 May 2009: the download links have been announced for 5 May – for developers, IT Professionals/Microsoft partners and technology enthusiasts/consumers – and Microsoft has said that “It will be available at least through June 30, 2009, with no limits on the number of downloads or product keys available”.]

Windows Server 2008 R2 release candidate: what’s new? (part 1)

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Windows Server 2008 R2 logoLast year, I wrote a post about some of the things to look forward to in Windows Server 2008 R2 and, a week or so later, I was able to follow it up with the news that Terminal Services gets a big improvement as it becomes Remote Desktop Services (RDS). Six months have gone by, we’ve had the beta, and now the release candidate is here… and that release candidate has some new features – mostly relating to performance and scalability:

  • Looking first at the improvements to Hyper-V (in addition to those in last week’s post on the R2 wave of virtualisation products):
    • There are networking improvements with VM Chimney/TCP Offload capabilities whereby network operations are redirected to the physical NIC (where the NIC supports this), reducing the CPU burden and improving performance. The original version of Hyper-V supported chimney operations in the parent, but virtual machines could not take advantage of the functionality. This helps Hyper-V to scale as 10Gbps Ethernet becomes more common (a Hyper-V host can already saturate a Gigabit Ethernet connection if required) but it’s worth noting that not all applications can benefit from this as it’s more suitable for large file transfers (file servers, etc.) rather than web servers.
    • Another new Hyper-V networking feature is NIC direct memory access (NIC DMA), which shortens the overall path length from a physical NIC queue to virtual machine, resulting in further performance improvements. Because each NIC queue is assigned to a specific virtual NIC there’s still no sharing of memory (so no impact on security isolation) but direct access to virtual machine memory does avoid copies in the VSP and route lookups in the virtual switch; however this feature is disabled by default (as the only real benefit is found with 10Gbps Ethernet and only a few NICs currently have the capability to process it).
    • The long-awaited live migration functionality is definitely in (it was also in pre-release versions of the Hyper-V but was pulled before release). Windows Server 2008 R2’s clustered shared volumes are instrumental to making this feature work well and, even though I don’t believe it’s entirely necessary, VMware have had the functionality for several years now and Microsoft needs to be able to say “me too”.
    • Sadly, another “me too” feature (dynamic memory) has definitely been dropped from the R2 release. I asked Microsoft’s Jeff Woolsey, Principle Group Program Manager for Hyper-V, what the problem was and he responded that memory overcommitment results in a significant performance hit if the memory is fully utilised and that even VMware (whose ESX hypervisor does have this functionality) advises against it’s use in production environments. I can see that it’s not a huge factor in server consolidation exercises, but for VDI scenarios (using the new RDS functionality), it could have made a significant difference in consolidation ratios.
  • Away from Hyper-V there are further performance and scalability improvements in the operating system, with support for up to 256 logical CPUs, improved scheduling on NUMA architectures, and support for solid state disks. As well as the power management improvements I mentioned in my original post last October, the operating system uses less memory and networking improvements result in improved file transfer speeds on the LAN, whilst new multi-threaded capabilities in robocopy.exe (using the /mt switch) can provide up to an 800% improvement in WAN file transfers. Putting these improvements into practice, Microsoft told me that one OLTP benchmark for SQL Server showed a 70% improvement by moving from 64 to 128 processors and a file server throughput test showed a 32% improvement just by upgrading the operating system from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 R2. Indeed, Microsoft is keen to show off these improvements at TechEd next month (together with System Center products being used to manage and cap power usage) and they will also announce a new power logo as an additional qualification for the Windows Server logo programme. Some of the power improvements will be back-ported to Windows Server 2008 SP2, although that operating system still won’t quite match up to R2.

None of these are big features but they have the potential to make some significant differences in the efficiency of an organisation’s Windows Server estate – an important consideration as economic and environmental pressures affect the way in which we run our IT systems. This isn’t the whole story though as Microsoft still has a few more surprises in this release candidate. With the RC code available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers today, I’m not sure how Microsoft is planning on keeping them quiet but, for now, my lips are sealed so stay tuned for part 2…

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 release candidate availability

Posted on By Mark Wilson

There’s been a lot of chatter on the ‘net about Windows 7 release dates and new features but a lot of it is based on one or two leaks that then get reported (and sometimes misreported) across a variety of news sites and blogs.

After various reports that we could see a Windows 7 release candidate (RC) earlier in April, and various leaked builds, today’s the day when the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 RCs will officially be made available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers (the client release candidate was announced last week and the official announcement around the Windows Server 2008 R2 release candidate is due today).

For those who are not TechEd or MSDN subscribers, the RC will be available to the public on/around 5 May.

Whilst the Windows 7 client was already feature complete at the beta, the server version, Windows Server 2008 R2, includes some new functionality – some of which I’ll detail in a separate blog post and some of which will not be announced until TechEd on 11 May 2009.

If you want to know more about the Windows 7 release candidate, then Ed Bott has a Windows 7 release candidate FAQ which is a good place to start. One thing you won’t find in there though is a release date for Windows 7, as Bott quotes one Microsoft executive:

“Those who know, won’t say. Those who say, don’t know.”

As for the future of Windows Mary Jo Foley reported last week that work is underway on “Windows 8” and is suggesting it could be with us as early as 2011/2. If Microsoft continues the 2-year major/minor cycles for the server version and co-develops the Windows client and server releases again, that would fit but, for now, let’s concentrate on Windows 7!

Finally, Microsoft has a new website launching tomorrow (but which has been available for a few days now) aimed at IT professionals in the Windows space. If you find the Engineering Windows 7 blog a little wordy (sometimes I wish they would stick to the Twitter rule of 140 characters!), Talking About Windows is a video blog which provides insight on Windows 7 from the Microsoft engineers who helped build the product, combined with real-world commentary from IT professionals.