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Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) on Monday said Hyper-V’s oft-delayed Live Migration feature will be part of Windows Server 2008 R2 when it’s released in 2010. While that might seem like a long time for Microsoft to add a feature that VMware has had since 2004, solution providers aren’t concerned that Live Migration isn’t part of the software giant’s virtualization portfolio.

“Live Migration is not important to us at all at this point,” said Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing, an Oakland, Calif.-based solution provider and Microsoft Gold partner. “With what Microsoft offers out of the box today, I’m not sure whether we have a need for Live Migration.”

Live migration, an enterprise-class feature included in the VMware and Xen-based virtualization platforms, makes it possible to move running virtual machines from one system to another system. Microsoft says a feature in Hyper-V called Quick Migration, which is almost as fast as live migration, can perform virtual machine migrations in just six seconds.

Full Article – http://www.crn.com/software/210600662?cid=CRNFeed

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) on Monday said Hyper-V’s oft-delayed Live Migration feature will be part of Windows Server 2008 R2 when it’s released in 2010. While that might seem like a long time for Microsoft to add a feature that VMware has had since 2004, solution providers aren’t concerned that Live Migration isn’t part of the software giant’s virtualization portfolio.

“Live Migration is not important to us at all at this point,” said Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing, an Oakland, Calif.-based solution provider and Microsoft Gold partner. “With what Microsoft offers out of the box today, I’m not sure whether we have a need for Live Migration.”

Live migration, an enterprise-class feature included in the VMware and Xen-based virtualization platforms, makes it possible to move running virtual machines from one system to another system. Microsoft says a feature in Hyper-V called Quick Migration, which is almost as fast as live migration, can perform virtual machine migrations in just six seconds.

Full Article – http://www.crn.com/software/210600662?cid=CRNFeed

When Microsoft was developing Vista, or Longhorn, as it was known way back when, company officials were fond of making promises about ways that Microsoft would improve on Windows XP with its next-generation Windows release.

With Windows 7, Microsoft’s goal seems to be to provide as few promises as possible against which the final product can and will be compared and measured. That said, over the Labor Day weekend in a post by Distinguished Engineer Michael Fortin — who leads the Fundamnetals feature team in the Core Operating Systems Group — Microsoft did dangle one tangible tidbit about Windows 7. From the post:

“For Windows 7, a top goal is to significantly increase the number of systems that experience very good boot times. In the lab, a very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds.”

(The reason I put a question mark in the headline of my post is because Fortin doesn’t actually go so far as to say that Microsoft is promising to hit the rarefied “in the lab” boot-time measure. But the implication is definitely there.)

Full Article – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1563

It is with great enthusiasm that the Microsoft Application Virtualization product team announces the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of App-V 4.5!!! App-V 4.5 represents a huge step forward for the product and is the result of many hours of hard work by all of us on the team. Our TAP customers (selected customers who work closely with us to deploy the product into production prior to its final release) and our internal Microsoft IT team have already successfully deployed the product in production to more than 70,000 seats! We are very excited that all of our customers will soon be able to use App-V 4.5 to improve the way that they distribute and run applications in their environments!

Since the RTM of SoftGrid 4.2 last year, we have been working to take that great release and expand upon it. Besides changing the name and making it the first Microsoft-branded release, we’ve done a lot in this release for those of you who are responsible for deploying and administering App-V worldwide in your enterprise. It includes new capabilities designed to help IT support large-scale virtualization implementations across many sites and provides multiple delivery options, including over-the-internet application delivery. Newly added support for eleven languages enables your users to work in localized environments with localized applications. Dynamic Suite Composition (DSC) provides administrator-controlled virtual application communication and interaction. Compliance with Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing and Secure by Default initiatives was also introduced in this release. Finally, integration with Microsoft System Center Management Products and infrastructure updates via Windows Update will make managing the product even easier.

Full Article – http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/09/03/microsoft-application-virtualization-4-5-rtms.aspx

Last week, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 in English, German, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese. While it was already known that IE8 would be going final before the end of the year it still wasn’t clear whether there would be a Beta 3 and when exactly IE8 would be released. It’s time to try to answer those two questions.

According to the IE8 Beta 2 support page, prereleased versions will no longer be supported come November:

Free unlimited installation and usage support is available for Internet Explorer 8 pre-released versions, but only for North America English customers. This support for Internet Explorer 8 pre-released versions is valid until November 1, 2008.

Full Article – http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/09/03/unless-theres-a-beta-3-ie8-may-be-set-for-november-release

Last week, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 in English, German, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese. While it was already known that IE8 would be going final before the end of the year it still wasn’t clear whether there would be a Beta 3 and when exactly IE8 would be released. It’s time to try to answer those two questions.

According to the IE8 Beta 2 support page, prereleased versions will no longer be supported come November:

Free unlimited installation and usage support is available for Internet Explorer 8 pre-released versions, but only for North America English customers. This support for Internet Explorer 8 pre-released versions is valid until November 1, 2008.

Full Article – http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/09/03/unless-theres-a-beta-3-ie8-may-be-set-for-november-release

Google is launching an open source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The browser is designed to be fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.

Called Chrome, it will launch as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

Full Article – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7593106.stm

Sometimes you get what you ask for. For years, Web developers, standards advocates, technology enthusiasts and others have been asking–no, begging–Microsoft to ship a standards compliant version of its Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser. Doing so would free Web site owners from having to worry about cross-browser differences, though given the millions of intranet and Internet sites developed solely for classic (read: Pre-IE 7) versions of its browser, such a thing would surely bring with it compatibility issues.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ie8_beta2.asp

Microsoft’s “Mojave Experiment” (visit the Web site) is a controversial and effective ad campaign aimed at getting individuals to form their own opinions about Windows Vista. This effort cuts to the heart of a matter with which I’ve been heavily involved over the past year and a half: An astonishing number of people are aware of the conventional wisdom about Windows Vista–that it’s too slow, too unremarkable, too incompatible, or just plain lousy–despite the fact that very few of these curiously opinionated people have ever actually used the thing.

If you’re a regular reader of this site, or of my blog, or a listener of my podcast, you’re familiar with the refrain: Windows Vista is not the piece of junk that so many people think it is. And yet everyone’s heard that it’s horrible. I blame a number of factors for this disconnect between the reality I see every day with Windows Vista on a wide range of machines and the fantasy world in which Windows Vista is a poor product doing poorly in the marketplace.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_mojave.asp

Mozilla did its best to throw a spoiler into Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta 2 launch on Wednesday. But the new Ubiquity add-in for Firefox doesn’t sound all that different from what Microsoft is doing with the version of its browser due to ship in November.

That’s my take, but you can form your own opinion. Starting today, August 27, at 3 p.m. EST, Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta 2 became available for download by anyone who wants to give it a whirl.

As expected, there are a lot of new features that were not part of IE Beta 1 which are now available in IE 8 Beta 2. InPrivate browsing (”porn mode”) and InPrivate blocking are just two of the many new items that got added to the latest IE beta. Others include crash recovery (I’m installing just for that alone!), a “Diagnose Connection Problem” button, and Compatibility View (for sites that break when viewed in IE 8 — some examples of which are on the Redmond Pie enthusiast site).

Full Article – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1556

Charles Torre and I paid a visit to the Windows Home Server team to get the latest on what’s up with the SDK they released, what it means to consumers, what Add-In’s they’re playing with now, and what we can expect from the team down the road. (Check out Charles’ video on Channel 9 here)

While I was there, they pulled out some new hardware for Home Server. The first (at 11:00 in) is the Epson Endeavor, based on an Atom CPU (low power, very quiet) using 2.5″ laptop hard drives. Next is reference hardware from VIA (at 14:30 in the video) called the Antigo, based on a Pico-ITX motherboard. This one is extremely small sizing up smaller than a Western Digital My Book external hard drive. This one is without a doubt going to be my replacement Home Server.

Article – http://on10.net/blogs/larry/Windows-Home-Server-First-Look-at-New-Reference-Hardware/

The .NET 3.5 Framework (RTM and SP1) are not supported for use on WSS 2.0 and SPS2003 platforms. (This includes installing Visual Studio 2008, as it installs .NET 3.5) It is going to cause webparts to error.
Symptoms

If .NET Framework 3.5 SP 1 is installed on WSS v2 the symptoms are:

Each web part will display the following error:

Web Part Error: A Web Part or Web Form Control on this Web Part Page cannot be displayed or imported because it is not registered on this site as safe.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/ronalg/archive/2008/08/26/net-3-5-and-sql-2008-not-supported-for-wss-2-0-and-sps2003.aspx

Silverlight Tip of the Day #32

Title: How to Declare a Custom User Control from a XAML Page.
Demo:http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Custom%20UserControl/iframe.html

Silverlight Terrain Tutorial Part 3

Title: Creating Smooth Tile Transitions using Opacity Masks.
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Terrain%20Transititions/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #31

Title: How to Detect Alt, Shift, Control, Windows and Apple keys with Left Mouse Down in Silverlight
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Left%20Mouse%20Down/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #30:

Title: Fast Sprite Animation in Silverlight
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Fast%20Sprites/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #29:

Title: Creating a Transparent, Draggable Dialog with Rounded Corners.
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Border%20Demo/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #28:

Title: How to Implement a Custom Mouse Cursor
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Custom%20Cursor%20Demo/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #32

Title: How to Declare a Custom User Control from a XAML Page.
Demo:http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Custom%20UserControl/iframe.html

Silverlight Terrain Tutorial Part 3

Title: Creating Smooth Tile Transitions using Opacity Masks.
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Terrain%20Transititions/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #31

Title: How to Detect Alt, Shift, Control, Windows and Apple keys with Left Mouse Down in Silverlight
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Left%20Mouse%20Down/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #30:

Title: Fast Sprite Animation in Silverlight
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Fast%20Sprites/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #29:

Title: Creating a Transparent, Draggable Dialog with Rounded Corners.
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Border%20Demo/iframe.html

Silverlight Tip of the Day #28:

Title: How to Implement a Custom Mouse Cursor
Demo: http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/66033/Custom%20Cursor%20Demo/iframe.html

On behalf of the SBS team, I am extremely pleased to announce that Windows Small Business Server 2008 software has been finalized! Today both SBS Standard and Premium are being released to manufacturing, which means we begin the process of finalizing international versions, creating media, building packaging, delivering the product to distribution channels and handing it off to our OEM partners, so it will be widely available by our November 12 launch. (More information about launch will come in the future.)

Full article – http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/08/21/sbs-2008-released-to-manufacturing.aspx