Mehran Nikoo's Notes

SkyDrive Release and Storage Increase

SkyDrive now provides users with 5GB (was 1GB) of free online storage and benefits from further performance and reliability improvements. It is also good to know that the Beta testing period for SkyDrive is over so it is now available in its released version.

Expanded Interoperability Initiatives at Microsoft

Microsoft will apply changes to its technology and business practices, which will cover high-volume business products including Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007 and all future versions of these products.

Here are some of the specific actions Microsoft is taking to implement these new interoperability principles:

- Ensuring open connections to Microsoft's high-volume products

- Documenting how Microsoft supports industry standards and extensions

- Enhancing Office 2007 to provide greater flexibility of document formats

- Launching the Open Source Interoperability Initiative

- Expanding industry outreach and dialogue

You can find more about these initiatives here.

GAX/GAT February 2008 Final Release

The final release of Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) and Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) provides support for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. You can find the download links and more about the final release here.

WCF Exam 70-503

The WCF exam (TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 - Windows Communication Foundation [70-503]) is getting closer to its release date as the exam development team and the subject matter experts are working on the final stages of the exam development.

As far as I remember the beta period was extended to 1st Feb 2008 so it should be released late in March or early in April.

Earlier this week, I was invited to participate in the final review session for reviewing the content and setting the passing standards for this exam as I took the beta exam in December. These review sessions are normally held at the MS Campus in Redmond and travelling from London to Redmond for attending a one day review session is not a good use of Microsoft resources (let alone the carbon footprint) as I will miss few working days due to jet lag, etc and in addition to that, it will be tricky for the learning team to pay for the travel cost of a fulltime employee anyway so maybe next time :)

Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 RTM

Here is the press release for Windows Server 2008 RTM and you can find more about Windows Server 2008 here.

As you may know, the great thing about this combined release is that Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 share a large portion of their code base. This makes the desktop and the server operating systems more consistent when it comes to common features like security and networking. This is exciting news for developers as in the past; we had to deal with the difference in the behaviour of some of the components like IIS in the desktop OS (IIS 5.1 in Windows XP) and the server OS (IIS 6.0 in Windows Server 2008). Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 are much closer in terms of their code base and behaviour and the combined release of Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 brings them even closer to each other.

At the time of this writing, the following editions are available to MSDN Subscribers for download:

- Windows Server 2008 Standard (x64)
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (x64)
- Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (x64)

Please note that these editions come with the beta version of Hyper-V and can be updated when Hyper-V is released later in the year.

And the following editions will be coming soon:

- Windows Server 2008 Standard (x86)
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (x86)
- Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (x86)
- Windows Web Server 2008 (x86, x64)
- Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems
- Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V (x86, x64)
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V (x86, x64)
- Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V (x86, x64)

More information on Windows Server 2008 editions.

Although the SP1 for Windows Vista has reached the RTM milestone, the broad release of Windows Vista SP1 is currently scheduled for mid-March. This will allow the hardware vendors to address the issues with their device drivers before SP1 is broadly released to the customers. You can read more about the release for Windows Vista SP1 here.

Update 1 (10 Feb 2008): Windows Web Server 2008 (x86, x64) and Windows Server 2008 Datacenter, Enterprise and Standard (x86) are now available for download via MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

Update 2 (14 Feb 2008): All editions mentioned in the above list can now be downloaded from the MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

MSDN Subscriber Downloads is changing

This change is scheduled for late February and improves the user experience by integrating the downloads and product key functionality into the MSDN web site, providing a better navigation model for browsing the product list and filtering the search results. You can find more information on the enhancements (including some screenshots for the new design) here.