Let's say you might be the kind of IT man or woman whose days, evenings,
and weekends are consumed by working around from position to point, hoping to maintain
your company's or clients' pcs running. Probabilities are very very good you are even now employing XP on
the desktop and Server 2003 while in the closet, due to the fact you happen to be utilized to it, you happen to be
cozy with it,
Cheap Office Professional Plus 2010, your consumers comprehend it, and nobody's paying you to become
disruptive. As well as, you happen to be busy! So whenever you hear the title "Windows Server 2008
R2," what's your initial considered? You might be probably to believe that it's minor a lot more
than a warmed-over services pack for Windows Server 2008, which is the server
edition with the much-maligned Windows Vista. That alone is adequate of the condemnation to
retain a good amount of men and women absent, even ahead of we get to your learning curve.
But when you begin to consider a closer search, you realize that
one thing significantly larger is going on right here compared to name suggests. This "R2"
moniker has gained favor in Redmond while in the previous handful of a long time as being a method of saying, "It's
the identical software, truthful! We've nailed on some bits for the aspect." It's supposed
to appeal to IT departments that are allergic to disruptive changes. Probably
it's intended to appeal towards the internal Star Wars fan and make you consider
it really is an adorable sidekick that will resolve tough problems which has a basic device. Windows Server 2003 R2 undoubtedly fit that description—the kernel, core
operating system and feature set of Server 2003 were 100 percent retained for 2003 R2,
and some useful tools were added on. Server 2008 R2, on the other hand, is a a lot
different story. It has a revised kernel, it has a new user interface, and it
isn't a drop-in upgrade for that entry-level server you bought six a long time ago. But it presents some new and genuinely interesting ways of solving a lot of
the day-to-day issues, big and small, that the hectic IT particular person deals with.
We will consider a closer appear at two of those new features, Remote Desktop Services and DirectAccess, inside the coming weeks. But for now, let us begin with the basics.
The Boring Stuff
Let's get the (frankly boring) marketing & accounting details
out from the way initial. The core editions of Server 2008 R2 are Foundation,
Standard, Enterprise,
Microsoft Office 2010 Sale Leo Apotheker, and Datacenter. The relative newcomer right here could be the
"Foundation" edition. It can be functionally exactly the same as Standard Edition and
contains almost all of the very same features, but at about one third the price—about $270 USD. It is limited to 15 network accounts, 8GB of memory and 1
physical CPU, does not support Server Core, and can only be obtained as part of
a server purchase from OEMs like Dell, HP, and others. Other editions offered
by Microsoft include a Web edition (branded as "Windows Web Server 2008 R2") for
dedicated large-scale Web hosting environments, an edition for Intel's Itanium 2
processors that is roughly analogous to the Datacenter edition (but does not
support Server Core), and an edition for large-scale distributed computing
called HPC Server. The Small Business Server and Essential Business Server editions of Server 2008 R2 are due out later in 2010.
A few quick points about licensing. Companies that have
already purchased Client Access Licenses or Terminal Services CALs for Windows
Server 2008 can continue to use those CALs with Server 2008 R2. Client
machines that connect to a Windows Server Foundation machine don't require CALs
at all. A license for Server 2008 R2 Enterprise qualifies it to be run in up
to four separate virtual machines on a single server (regardless of whether
you are utilizing Microsoft's Hyper-V, VMWare, or some other virtualization
software program), and a license for Server 2008 R2 Datacenter can be utilised to run an
unlimited number of instances on a single server, though it is licensed on a
per-CPU basis.
In terms of hardware requirements, 2008 R2 generally has
lower "real-world" requirements than Server 2008, but higher requirements than Server
2003. The main issue that most administrators are going to need to pay
attention is the new 64-bit CPU requirement. There are a number of scalability
and optimization benefits that come from this, and it has some positive
implications for security, but it comes at a cost. Most pre-2006 hardware
cannot run it at all, and any software that needs to operate in kernel mode
(e.g. drivers and anti-virus software) needs to become 64-bit as well. 2008 R2 can
even now run user-mode applications designed for 32-bit versions of Windows by
utilizing a feature called "Windows on Windows 64-bit" (WOW64 for short). WOW64 makes it possible for those applications to run as 32-bit,
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intercepting any system function calls, file system access,
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print jobs, and interactions with the kernel, translating them to a 64-bit
equivalent. It is all done in a means that's almost completely transparent to the
application. This technology isn't new, but it can be becoming pretty widely employed
as more men and women use 64-bit versions of Windows.
One feature of WOW64 that's new to 2008 R2 in a Server Core
install is that it can be removed altogether. Microsoft had originally intended to
make WOW64 an installable option, and did all the refactoring work to untangle
it from the rest of Windows, but had to back off after a rash of negative
feedback from beta testers. It turns out that many application packages, even
64-bit ones, use 32-bit installer code—even if all that 32-bit code does is
say, "Hey, you need a 64-bit version of Windows!" If you want to remove WOW64
from a Server Core install, it is easy: type "ocsetup ServerCore-WOW64
/uninstall" at a command prompt. Reinstalling it is just as straightforward:
"ocsetup ServerCore-WOW64."
The Pretty Stuff
As you already know from our
extensive review of
Windows 7, the user interface has received a pretty
significant update. 2008 R2 includes this new interface as well, including the
new taskbar, the litany of new keyboard & mouse shortcuts, the new Explorer
with the vastly improved left-hand navigation pane, and the various toys and
tidbits such as the Ribbon-based Paint and WordPad. Unlike its desktop counterpart,
none in the advanced graphics or multimedia features are installed by default. Installing the "Desktop Experience" optional component adds Windows Aero
graphics and effects, Windows Media Player, a bevy of desktop backgrounds,
Windows Defender, Sound Recorder, and other desktop tools to a Server 2008 R2
installation, making it seem and feel more like
Windows 7.
By and large,
Office 2007 Professional Product Key, most men and women won't do this on their Server 2008
R2 installs. But there are two groups of people who will want to:
enthusiasts that plan to run Server 2008 R2 as their desktop operating system,
and administrators of Remote Desktop Session Host server. While the initial
scenario is obvious enough, the second will come like a massive surprise: yes,
you can use Windows Media Player to play audio and video at full speed above a
Remote Desktop connection. Yes, you can record audio above a Remote Desktop
connection. And, perhaps most surprising of all, yes, you can have a fully
Aero-enabled desktop, with translucent effects, animations, full-fidelity audio
and all, more than a Remote Desktop connection.
No, I'm really not making this up:
Windows Media Player (and, in theory,
Buy Office Professional 2010, DirectShow or Media Foundation-based multimedia application) is able to recognize when it
is being run in a Remote Desktop session, and will stream the contents from the
file being played through the Remote Desktop connection. Your local desktop
decodes the file and displays it on your own screen. It can be significantly precisely the same with
the Windows Aero graphics and effects; the remote machine instructs the local
machine to draw the windows and do all the Aero effects. Bitmap acceleration is also supported; this allows any application working
on the server that uses DirectX (including Flash and Silverlight) to run on the server, utilizing a GPU if available, or the CPU if necessary, to render the graphics, then capture the output and send it to the client. While this
sounds great in theory, in practice it is not really all that scalable.