Microsoft Virtual Server

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Microsoft Virtual Server

Virtual Server 2005 running a Windows Server 2003 guest on a Windows XP host machine.
Developed by Microsoft
Latest release Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 / June 11, 2007 (2007-06-11); 370 days ago
OS Microsoft Windows
Genre virtual machine
License proprietary
Website Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2

Microsoft Virtual Server is a virtualization solution that facilitates the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Originally developed by Connectix, it was acquired by Microsoft prior to release. Virtual PC is Microsoft's related desktop virtualization software package.

Virtual machines are created and managed through an IIS web-based interface or through a Windows client application tool called VMRCplus.

The current version is Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1. New features in R2 SP1 include Linux guest operating system support, Virtual Disk Precompactor, SMP (but not for the Guest OS), x64 Host OS support (but not Guest OS support), the ability to mount virtual hard drives on the host OS and additional operating systems including Windows Vista. It also provides a Volume Shadow Copy writer which enables live backups of the Guest OS on a Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 Host. A utility to mount VHD images is also included since SP1. Virtual Machine Additions for Linux are downloadable here. Officially supported Linux guest operating systems include Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 2.1-5.0, Red Hat Linux 9.0, SUSE Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server versions 9 and 10. [1]

Contents

[edit] Version history

The detailed dates of an initial release of Microsoft's Virtual Server are difficult to find. However, it is known that Microsoft acquired an, as-yet, unreleased Virtual Server from Connectix in February of 2003.

After Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix, the first release, Virtual Server 2005, was available in two editions: Standard and Enterprise. The Enterprise edition supported more processors. On 2006-04-03, Microsoft made Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition a free download,[2] in order to better compete with the free virtualization offerings from VMware and Xen, and discontinued the Standard Edition. [3]

Microsoft Virtual Server R2 SP1 added support for both Intel VT (IVT) and AMD Virtualization (AMD-V).[4]

[edit] Limitations

Known limitations of Virtual Server, as of September 2007, include the following:

  • Although Virtual Server 2005 R2 can run on hosts with x64 processors, it cannot run guests that require x64 processors (guests cannot be 64-bit).[2]
  • It also makes use of SMP, but does not virtualize it (it does not currently allow guests to use more than 1 CPU each).[2]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Linux Guest Support for Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1
  2. ^ a b c Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Download Frequently Asked Questions. Microsoft TechNet (2007-06-11). Retrieved on 2007-10-15.
  3. ^ Microsoft Virtual Server is now free
  4. ^ Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Product Overview. Microsoft TechNet (2007-06-11). Retrieved on 2007-08-24.

[edit] External links