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MS Virtual Server Free, Supports Linux

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

April 3, 2006, 1:49 PM

While most of the buzz at this week's LinuxWorld in Boston is intended to revolve around the open-source operating system, Microsoft on Monday decided to use a backdrop of the semi-annual Linux confab to make some waves of its own.

The company has announced that it would support those customers who decide to run Linux under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. Installations of Red Hat and SUSE Linux have been made simpler through software created by the Redmond company. Additionally, Microsoft would provide technical support for those who decide to run both through virtualization.

Microsoft will build virtualization directly into Windows Server "Longhorn". Through the "hypervisor technology," users of Longhorn will be able to host multiple operating systems on a single machine.

Additionally, Microsoft will now make Windows Virtual Server 2005 R2 a free download from its Web site. Previously, the application cost $99 USD for up to four processors and $199 USD for an unlimited number. The company said the move was made in response to customer requests.

Analysts speculate that the company's announcements have a lot to do with the recent activity in the virtualization sector.

VMware has made moves to solidify its position by offering a free version of its software called VMware Player. Additionally, the Xen virtualizaton project would be built into upcoming versions of Red and SUSE Linux.

"We see virtualization technology as a key stepping stone toward the vision of self-managing dynamic systems," Windows Server product marketing director Zane Adam said in a statement.

"Toward that end, we want to make virtualization more broadly accessible and affordable so our customers can realize benefits in areas like server consolidation, disaster recovery, application re-hosting, and software test and development," Adam continued.

Microsoft says that about 5,000 customers are currently using the Virtual Server product.

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By GoodThings2Life

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 6:47 PM

This is fantastic! I was planning to buy it this summer, but glad I don't have to wait.

The only downside of this is that there's a lot of people who obviously can't be bothered to be intelligent and rant and rave about Microsoft offering something for free.

Score: 0

By dlowerre

edited Apr 3, 2006 - 5:03 PM

Microsoft may write a lot of code, but there is not one application space that they currently dominate where they were the original innovator.

Excel: Stolen from Lotus
Word: Word Perfect came first
DOS: Bought baseline code from hapless developer
Windows: Stole the Idea from GEOS
Internet Explorer: Netscape? anyone?

The list just goes on. The only 'innovations' are programming widgets (like OLE, activeX) which are buggy, insecure, and unnecessary.

Defend them all you like, but their success comes not from their techical savvy or innovation, but from marketing savvy and complete lack of ethical restraint.

Score: 0

By morriscox

posted Apr 6, 2006 - 1:19 AM

Mosaic was before Netscape. If you include non-graphical, there is Lynx. I also recall using a program (don't recall the name) that was graphical and allowed you to view graphics on a website, but ran Lynx underneath.

Score: 0

By billweh

posted Apr 4, 2006 - 9:37 AM

Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordperfect are two perfect points to bring up. They owned the DOS based office market for years. When Windows first came on the scene, their original attempts were horrendous. WordPerfect 5.0 for Windows was so buggy, it made working on an Apple Macintosh feel like a stable system. Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows was equally horrible. For some reason, they couldn't get their acts together.

On top of that. WordPerfect changed their keyboard layout completely and that caused no end of confusion and disagreement on their community who had learned all of the keystrokes from the DOS program. I think if WP had a non-buggy (or lot fewer bugs) product and the same key mapping. We'd all be using WP now.

Windows, MAC OS, GEOS, they all aquired their look and feel from Xerox's product. Steve Jobs admits that he saw what they were doing and used that as his basis for the MAC. So what, do we rail against Firestone for building a round tire because Grog sometime back in 1500 BC created a round stone wheel?

Secondly, Netscape was the SECOND browser on the scene. The first was created by part of the team that made Netscape, but it wasn't the first. IE 3.0 was light years ahead of Netscape. It was faster, looked sharper and did more. MS rested on their laurels at that point, but I've been very happy with IE 6.x and 7 looks promising as well. Netscape was fine in it's day when it was the only game in town.

Firefox isn't a bad browser, but fortunately or unfortunately, the majority of people use IE and most sites are written to support that. If they didn't, they'd be out of business. Just like if you bought the only diesel vehicle in the world and everyone else was running on regular gasoline. Do you think all of the stations around would carry diesel just for you? (Or a few thousand?) Sorry, it's not going to happen. If Firefox can provide something unique, that truly makes the use of the internet more profound, they will never gain major market share. It's just the truth.

If they did do something that IE couldn't, that made using it the most important thing, then people would flock to it, but for now...?

Finally DOS. Yes, they did buy it from someone who probably had no idea what they were going to do with it. But so what? If you had invented the delayed wiper switch and sold it to GM for $30k and they made a ton of money over putting it in their cars. Would you go back and sue them for taking advantage of you? They paid you a fair share for what you sold to them. You accepted payment for the item. What they did with it afterwards was up to them. You could have sold it for more or worked out a royalty payment, but as it was, you took the flat fee.

Same goes for the guy who sold DOS to Bill Gates. He was paid for his work. End of story.

PS: I think that whole OLE/ActiveX/COM thing is actually based on CORBA, so I guess that's another thing they "stole". :-)

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 6:35 PM

Who cares? Your rant is off topic, and meaningless.

Score: 0

By Hellcat_M

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 5:56 PM

Thats the way things should be. Not only make new products but build upon old ones. Look at cars, we have tons of car manufactuerers, if we had it your way we would have 1. You take a product and make it different and hope its better. None of these programs were stolen. If I wanted to make my own word processing program, or hell my own OS I could. If you say Windows was stolen then you can say every OS that uses a graphics front end was stolen. Apple stole theirs from Xerox and MS stole it from them. But then Gnome and KDE front ends were stolen from MS. There are tons of types of speakers and stereo unit, did they all steal from one another? When Logitech came out with the optical mouse did they steal the idea from the first mouse manufacturer? Who cares if MS wasn't the first to come out with most of their products.

Score: 0

By Jedite

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 5:23 PM

Wait a second.. a WORD PROCESSSING PROGRAM STOLEN?!?!! Spreadsheet stolen? GUI was actually stolen from Apple, but then again Apple stole it from Xerox.

Please tell me how MS stole Excel and Word. PLEASE I BEG YOU. They wrote their own version of a Spredsheet and Word processor. A VERY good version i might add.

IE from netscape. Ok so Netscape came first? So what? Microsoft made their own version, and for better or worse they brought about a great browser war that saw alot of innovation.

Come down the high horse dude, MS may have its fault but it is a great software company. For some reason they are #1 in the market.

ASK anyone who works in a corporate and they will tell you that MS works for em very well. Ask about for example the Contact Framework for corporations, a magnificent piece of software i might add.

Score: 0

By morriscox

posted Apr 6, 2006 - 3:51 PM

Microsoft didn't make their own browser. They brought it. Spyglass Mosiac.

Score: 0

By flake

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 3:40 PM

They say they wrote the software? Didn't they buy it from Conectiva?

Very little MS software is an original from them.

Score: 0

By Gunzip

edited Apr 3, 2006 - 4:22 PM

That would be Connectix.

Regarding your second comment, they write PLENTY of original software, but as with any large company in any industry (not just software), if you have the means to acquire and get something which gives you a jump-start in a new area (technology, market segment, product line, etc), why not? ...

Gunzip

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 4:15 PM

Its true for games, not for software.

There are a LOT of original software from Microsft.

They write ALL development software, business software, Office Suite, and of course Windows OS..

There are a bunch of applications that MS writes, that they dont' actually put their name on, as well.... They write plenty of supporting type business apps.

They purchase companies for the technology, which they promptly re-write (i.e. Visio).

So.. Games not so much, but definately other apps, they do plenty.

Score: 0

By drumcat

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 3:38 PM

Be advised that you must have IIS running to use this thing... I'm sticking to VPC04. It isn't VMWare, but I had mem leaks with vmware...

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 4:16 PM

What is wrong with IIS? Its a simple service. Its not like other services which run, when there is nothing to do, IIS is pretty low cpu and very little memory overhead if its not needed.

Score: 0

By drumcat

posted Apr 4, 2006 - 3:19 PM

There's nothing wrong with it. It can produce a few security issues, and some people may want a VM software that doesn't open their machine as a web server.

Coming from VPC, I was surprised that something like IIS was required. Using it as an optional part of administration - hey, that's cool. But I don't want IIS running on my main box. No need for what I do. Thus, it's worth making others aware of the requirement.

Score: 0

By Kramy

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 5:08 PM

I don't have IIS, and I can't reinstall it. That's what's wrong with it! :P

Score: 0

By Scotch Moose

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 3:06 PM

Yawn!

My site has been on virtual servers for over a year. Of course I'm using Xen the original hypervisor.

Does anyone know if Microsoft's re-implementation has some real innovation, or is it just their typical attempt to catch-up to Free software by stealing GPL code and putting shiney mouse toys on top so that it looks like something new.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 6:43 PM

You could visit the site and actually read up on it rather than trashing something because you're too lazy to find out.

Score: 0

By Scotch Moose

posted Apr 4, 2006 - 9:10 AM

I'll look when there is really something new. VMware Player gives me everything I need on my desktop. It's great for testing and containing untrustworthy applications, Aieee!

The VMware and the Windows Virtual Server products you can get today use
hardware emulation. It is amazing technology and it's as slow as molasses.

That's why my servers are on Xen, Hypervisor technology that has been around for years and blows the doors off all the rest. With Xen you loose about 5% of the sever performance to virtualization, with the also rans it's closer to a 50% loss.

But if you can hold your breath, Microsoft plans to catchup in a year or so. And they will hide all the hard parts behind shiney mouse toys.

Score: 0

By drumcat

edited Apr 4, 2006 - 3:21 PM

Do you loose it?

You are aware of the implied ignorance of your error, right? No?

Weak, Moose. Or is it Mose? Either way, you looked like a goober on the Enterprise class reunion commercial.

Score: 0

By Joe Dirt

edited Apr 3, 2006 - 2:47 PM

I just went to download it and freaking MS want's all your information including what size freaking shoe you wear.

What is this crap?

Then when I'm all done it points me to download a PDF file and an HTM file.

What a joke.

I eventually found the setup but damn what a convoluted process.

That alone will make me stick with VMware.

MS has got problems and it's easy to tell they are backpeddling like mad to see how to fix it.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 6:42 PM

You could actually try READING the whole page before crying about your incompetence.

In the INSTRUCTIONS section, I thought it was pretty clear how to download and install it.

As for registering, what's wrong with wanting to know who your customers are? The fact that others DON'T do it only shows they don't give a rats butt about their customers.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 4:20 PM

Umm... So obviously you don't have a passport? That is one stop shopping. It logs you into their site, ONCE!

Hotmail, MSDN, etc. anything MS, gets you via Passport. If you did it correctly, you won't need to tell them this info again... Just FYI

Every downloaded from Sun? how about tried to register for a driver from HP? ALL of those require the same thing. They want to verify you are not a robot. Even if you are, you need to have a valid address.

Score: 0

By Kramy

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 5:06 PM

Sun? I've never had to register to get something from Sun. There were a few betas that were registered-user only, but JRE/JDK and a bunch of other things don't require any.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 3:02 PM

If you fill out the info they will cold-call you and keep calling you (leaving messages once a week,) until you say you aren't interested.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 6:38 PM

You're being an idiot... just uncheck the boxes during registration that give them permission to contact you.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 4:14 PM

Just a nitpik, but...

If you gave them your info, it's not technically a cold-call.

Makes the DNC list kinda pointless.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 4:18 PM

Hahaha.. that's a good point.

On the other hand, I hate to point this out AGAIN, but whenever you sign up for ANYTHING they ask for your personal info. Ever done a credit card app? Every downloaded from Sun? how about tried to register for a driver from HP? ALL of those require the same thing.

Score: 0

By The MAZZTer

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 2:29 PM

Obligitory Link:

http://www.microsoft.com...r/software/privacy.mspx

Score: 0

By Das mod

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 2:44 PM

how about

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=63997

Score: 0

By Joe Dirt

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 2:48 PM

Thanks for that.

No idea why MS thinks they need all this BS info about you before you can run this.

I'm so tired of that kind of crap.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 6:39 PM

Oh wah, quit your crying. If you want to use a product, follow their policies and use it. If you don't like the policies, move on to something you do like.

Score: 0

By Das mod

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 3:18 PM

if someone needs the x64 version

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=63998

Score: 0

By yohimbe9

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 2:21 PM

"Phew... lucky I didnt buy."

Same here. I was looking to buy, too.

Score: 0

By templar™

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 2:01 PM

I've been waiting for this moment for a long time......... :D

Phew... lucky I didnt buy.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 6:39 PM

Indeed! :)

Score: 0

By Das mod

posted Apr 3, 2006 - 1:55 PM

SWEET .... *** downloading as i read ***

Score: 0

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