Kurt Shintaku's Blog

It’s a big day for Microsoft virtualization! Today, we are announcing the public release of Windows Server 2008 RC1 with Hyper-V Beta!

A few highlights include:

1. Quick Migration and high availability providing solutions for planned and unplanned downtime
2. Support for running Hyper-V with Server Core in the parent partition
3. Import/Export of virtual machines
4. Hyper-V now integrated with Windows Server Manager
5. Integration components are now included in Windows Server 2008 meaning that when you install Windows Server 2008 in a Hyper-V virtual machine, Windows will automatically install the ICs.
6. VHD Tools support (compaction, expansion and inspection)
7. Emulated video card has changed from an S3 Trio video card to a more generic VESA compatible device. (This change resolves numerous video issues with non-Windows operating systems like Linux).
8. Support for up to four virtual SCSI controllers per virtual machine
9. Numerous fixes for compatibility, performance and scalability

For further details including migrating virtual machines from the CTP release to the Hyper-V Beta, see attachment. The build number for the official Hyper-V Beta is: 6001.17119.071210-1916_amd64fre_Server_en-us-KR1SXFRE_EN_DVD. In case you’re wondering this build is a slight update from the build we provided internally last week, however, the Hyper-V Beta bits are IDENTICAL…

In addition to the Hyper-V Beta release today, we are also releasing Beta integration components for Linux, specifically SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 through connect.microsoft.com!

Windows Server 2008 RC1 with Hyper-V Beta is publicly available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8F22F69E-D1AF-49F0-8236-2B742B354919&displaylang=en

Beta Integration Components for Linux available through connect.microsoft.com:

1. Login to https://connect.microsoft.com/default.aspx
2. Click on Available Connections in the left panel.
3. Review the available programs and apply for the Linux Integration Components for Microsoft Hyper-V.