Tuesday, 7 November 2006

Microsoft Announces Virtual Hard Disk Test Drive Program

Microsoft has unveiled the future of software distribution with the introduction of a virtual product evaluation program that lets users easily test server applications within a virtualised environment. The VHD Test Drive Program, named for Microsoft's Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format, will provide users with free preconfigured .VHD files that can be dropped onto any virtual machine that supports the .VHD format such as Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005, which also is free.

Users won't need dedicated servers or to manually configuration the server software to get up and going, according to Microsoft officials. The company also is allowing ISVs to distribute their evaluation software in the same virtualised manner.

The .VHD files provide users with evaluation copies of server software running on Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition. The first .VHD files, which are available now, provide evaluation copies of SQL Server 2005, Live Communications Server 2005, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 and Exchange 2007 (the 32-bit test version).

Microsoft also will provide Vista evaluation within a virtual machine in the first quarter of 2007.