I bought quite a powerful server for my new company (I am not listing the specs here, just look at the screenshot below), which is the perfect opportunity to evaluate the recently released Windows Server 2008. Even though I had already heard good things about it, I was still pleasantly surprised with its new features and improvements.

Many improvements have been made, but the key areas of interest for me are:

1. Hyper-V: Microsoft has made true virtualisation part of the operating system. When enabled even the 'root' copy of the OS is loaded as a VM, although one that has direct access to the hardware. My new box will definitely run many parallel Win2K instances.
    
2. Terminal Server: I have always loved Terminal server, but Citrix is just a better product when you look at it from a day to day usage perspective. I am not saying that Terminal server is now the better product, but the new Terminal Server Gateway, Web Portal and Application Publishing functionality in combination with the ease of installation is good enough for me to stop considering Citrix for smaller deployments.

Actually, it is so good that I am going to wipe Vista of my main laptop and run Win2k8 as a workstation OS. Many people seem to do the same.

Links of interest:

• Microsoft's Win2k8 Webcasts, virtual labs and podcasts.
• Webcasts on the TechEd 2008 website 
• Webcasts on the Teched 2007 website
• Webcasts on the TechNet website.
• Win2008workstation.com