Windows Server 2003 R2 is now RTM

These are the good old days. Windows Server 2003 R2 is now released to manufacturing!

R2 was a very interesting release. Very different from previous ones in terms of how it was developed. Think about it: it took around two years to develop (actually less - we shipped Windows Server 2003 in April 2003). And it contains lots of solid new features, especially around storage management. Many storage components were significantly improved, like DFSR (which is much easier to manage than the previous versions), VDS 1.1 (which works now with iSCSI and MPIO), and other goodies.

So, I don't know who said that it takes five years to release every new Windwos version, because that's not true. Or, at least, R2 is definitely an exception :-)

I was working on a completely new feature, called FSRM (specifically on the Storage Reports product). You can see it in action here. Maybe I should blog more about Storage Reports, now that it is out in the wild.

In the meantime, try it out! You can download the R2 trial version from here.