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Microsoft officials told beta testers on Thursday that the second beta release of its Windows Server 2003 R2 update is now available for download.
Microsoft made the R2 Beta 2 bits available on its Betaplace Web site.
R2 is a fairly minor version of Windows Server, built on the recently released Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) code base. R2 integrates a number of the myriad Windows Server 2003 feature packs that Microsoft has shipped since April 2003, plus adds a few new features.
Among the new features slated for inclusion in R2: a new file migration toolkit; simple-SAN management tools; a new storage-resource-management subsystem (code-named "Corral") and centralized file and print management facilities.
The R2 release is slated to ship by the end of calendar 2005.
Microsoft announced Beta 1 of R2 in December. There were about 1,500 testers who got the initial Beta 1 drop, Microsoft officials said. Since then, Microsoft added 1,300 more testers to the R2 ranks.
Build 1939 is the official R2 Beta 2 version number, testers said. But Microsoft recently identified R2 build number 1927 as the "Beta 2 Escrow Build."
According to testers, who requested anonymity, Build 1927 included a number of changes from the Beta 1 build. (These changes are still part of 1939, testers said.) Among them:
Tweaks have been made to the distributed file system replication (DFSR) feature. Most of these are cosmetic/user interface and management-console-level kinds of modifications.
Microsoft has made some modifications to the File Server Role (FSR), among them, adjustments to the file server management console.The goal? To make it easier for administrators to find information and resources for managing file servers.
The aforementioned File Server Migration Toolkit has been axed. Microsoft is now planning to release an update to the migration toolkit as a downloadable file by the end of the year, beta testers said.
The R2 Setup Wizard has been modified. As a result, users won't be able to uninstall Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 after the R2 setup has been completed. Microsoft also has added a new feature, called R2Repair that will run after the installation of future Windows Server 2003 service packs, beta testers said.
A beta release of Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2 (SP2) has been added to the R2 beta. The SP2 beta adds new capabilities like SharePoint domain renaming; better support for reverse proxies; and more safeguards against the disabling of Kerberos, according to testers.
Microsoft officials did not respond by the time this article was published to a request for confirmation of these R2 changes.
(This is an updated version of an article which appeared in the April 14, 2005, issue of the Microsoft Watch newsletter. Want to see what other Microsoft news nuggets you might have missed? Sign up today for a free two-week trial subscription to Microsoft Watch.)
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