Yesterday Microsoft finalized Windows Server 2008 (formerly codename Longhorn) code declaring it Ready to Manufacture (RTM).
For this release the company took an unusual step including a beta version of its upcoming hypervisor Hyper-V (formerly codename Viridian) inside the gold image (x64 version only).
For those customers which don’t want the beta hypervisor inside their operating system Microsoft released a version of Windows 2008 without Hyper-V. Here the complete list of available SKUs:
- x64 Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter Editions – Hyper-V included (server role and management console)
- x86 Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter Editions – Hyper-V partially included (management console only)
- x64 Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter Editions – Hyper-V not included
- x86 Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter Editions – Hyper-V not included
- x86/x64 Web Edition – Hyper-V not included
The Hyper-V build included inside the RTM is the same released in December and included inside Windows 2008 Release Candidate 1.
Customers will be able to update the current version through the Windows Update service (and possibly also through the WSUS product), despite it’s unknown how this will impact the virtual machines availability: since Hyper-V features a microkernel architecture lying below the so called parent and child partitions, it’s likely that customers will have to reboot the entire system at least one time to upgrade the hypervisor.
The final version of Hyper-V is expected 180 days from now, accordingly to the current Microsoft roadmap.