"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