Microsoft offers first RC of Windows Server 2008
InfoWorld | at | by Mike
The long march to the release of Windows Server 2008, aka Longhorn Server, continued on Monday, as Microsoft announced that it is making the first Release Candidate version of the upcoming operating system available for public download.
Microsoft said that RC0, as it's being called by the software vendor, will become available on its Web site within the next 24 hours -- replacing the Beta 3 release that it has been offering to early users.
RC0 is the first pre-release version to include a built-in virtualization hypervisor, which is code named Viridian. But Ward Ralston, senior technical product manager for Microsoft's Windows Server group, noted that the hypervisor component "is not yet in beta" and is thus less mature than the rest of Windows Server 2008.