Windows Server 2008 Is Microsoft`s Leanest, Meanest Yet

“Faster” and “slimmer” are two adjectives to which few software product upgrades can lay legitimate claim—particularly if the software upgrade in question is a Windows operating system.

And, yet, Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008, which recently hit the RTM (release to manufacturing) milestone, demonstrates that Microsoft is capable of producing a lean, mean server machine—and doing it, no less, atop the same code base that backs the company’s oft-maligned Windows Vista client operating system.

The new Windows Server boasts a set of networking enhancements that dramatically boost file serving performance, and the product can be deployed in a new, stripped-down Server Core configuration, which significantly reduces the attack surface of systems hosting certain Windows Server roles.

Toss in a more modular and securable Web server in IIS (Internet Information Services) 7.0, Microsoft’s new hypervisor-based virtualization functionality and a host of management enhancements, and Windows Server 2008 merits eWEEK Labs’ Analyst’s Choice designation