The Beta of the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 is available for download: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ff183870.aspx

This major update will introduce two key technologies:

• Hyper-V Dynamic Memory: http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/D/E6D383D1-414E-41A3-8388-D0D8D3D1F530/Windows_Server_2008_R2_SP1_Hyper-V_Public_FAQ.docx, http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/0/5/E05DF049-8220-4AEE-818B-786ADD9B434E/Implementing_and_Configuring_Dynamic_Memory.docx and http://edge.technet.com/Media/Vijay-Demos-Dynamic-Memory-in-Hyper-V-on-Windows-Server-2008-R2-SP1/
• Remote Desktop Services with RemoteFX: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/E/4/7E4D882D-BFBD-447F-B410-C5CC82E33060/Windows_Server_2008_R2_RDS_General_FAQ_SP1Beta.docx and http://edge.technet.com/Media/RemoteFX-in-Server-2008-R2-SP1-with-Michael-Kleefe/

You might also want to have a look at the the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta Reviewer’s Guide.

Marc

According to Scott Guthrie, MS is about to bring best of both worlds by releasing an “Express” version of Internet Information Server" (IIS).

This would be used as a smooth though rich replacement for Visual Studio’s built-in Web Server or to the very basic one shipped with each recent version of Windows.

Interestingly some see this as a threat for the health of IIS in the enterprise. Personally, I am rather seeing this as an opportunity to better and more easily align Dev and Prod infrastructures and therefore reduce the gap and subsequent failure at release time. Future will tell.

• MSDN – ScottGu’s Blog – Introducing IIS Express

Marc

A busy week for MS tools updates, this time it’s ADMT (Active Directory Migration Tool) to be updated for Server 2008 R2.

Important to mention: as previously, it cannot be installed on read-only domain controller (RODC) or on domain controllers running a “Core” version.

Download links as well as extra information:

• MS Download - Active Directory Migration Tool version 3.2
• MS Download - Password Export Server version 3.1 (updated in 2009 for Server 2008, still current for 2008 R2)
• MS Download - Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT) v3.0 Migration Guide (same remark as above)

Marc

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 was just released on 6/24. Useful links and online information’s:

• MS Download - Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 x86, x64 and ia64
• Open source Parsers on CodePlex
• Open source Experts (small, but often useful, applications based on NetMon technologies), on CodePlex too
• The NetMon Blog, for some posts over the new features coming with version 3.4
• Visual Round Trip Analyzer (VRTA), based on NetMon too

Marc

While Windows Server 2008 and Vista introduces the version 2.0 of the Server Message Block protocol (aka File and Printer Sharing in humanly readable words), Windows Server 2008-R2 and Seven both bring a refreshed version, the 2.1. Instead of drilling down right-here into the protocol's details, I found more useful to post links to the most interesting resources on the Web.

Protocol Specification and Details

• MSDN - File System Behavior in the Microsoft Windows Environment
• MSDN – Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol Specification
• MSDN - Server Message Block (SMB) Version 2 Protocol Specification
• MSDN Channel 9 - Server Message Block (SMB2.1) Drill-down
• MSDN channel 9 - File Access Services Systems Overview Presentation
• Wireshark Wiki - Server Message Block Protocol (SMB)
• Wireshark Wiki – Server Message Block Protocol (SMB) Version 2
• Jose Barreto’s Blog – File Server Performance Improvements with SMB2 Protocol in Windows Server 2008
• Ask the Performance Team Blog – Two Minute Drill Overview of SMB2

Tuning and Optimization

• MSDN Channel 9 - Windows 7: Optimizing Applications for Remote File Services over the WAN
• Microsoft Windows Hardware Developer Central– Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 R2 (see chapter “Performance Tuning for File Servers”)
• Neil Carpenter's Blog - SMB/CIFS Performance Over WAN Links
• Microsoft Open Specification Support Team Blog - SMB 2.1 Multi-Credit (Large MTU) Operations
• TechNet Magazine - End-to-End WAN Optimization with BranchCache
• MSDN Code - BranchCache Bandwidth Saving Calculation PowerShell Script for the SMB Protocol

Support and Troubleshooting

• MSDN Channel 9 - Troubleshooting Windows SMB/SMB2 Issues
• MSDN Code - Diagnosing a BranchCache deployment for the SMB protocol
• MS KB - MS09-050: Vulnerabilities in SMB could allow remote code execution

Extra Goodies: Multi-threaded Robocopy and GUI

Although not directly related to SMB 2.1, Robocopy was also updated with the recent version of Windows. The main improvement is the support for multi-threaded operations, particularly interesting when massive file copy operations must take place against small files over WAN connections. I will cover this in details in a coming post. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd542631.aspx for details. Important to note that this option is NOT compatible with the inter-packet gap option (copy using throttling).

Not so new, for those reluctant to learn and exploit all Robocopy command-lines params, there are cool GUI’s available out there, RichCopy being, like its names says it all, the richest one.

Marc