Microsoft has finally gotten its client and server teams into a cadence that encourages building strong connections between client and server. Once you learn the combined strength of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, you may get off the fence about migrating.
Even though Microsoft shifted to a common core technology for both its client and server Windows software a decade ago, the two development teams were never quite in sync when it came to releases, and therefore, it was difficult to coordinate special features that tied the desktop OS to the server.
But with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft finally got the two on a very close release schedule. Both entered beta in late 2008 and were commercially available in October 2009. They share quite a few common technologies, including:
- Scaling to 256 cores
- Fewer hardware locks and improved parallelism
- Timer coalescing, where multiple tasks can be executed at once, rather than one at a time, so the processor can go into a low power mode
- Windows Installer 5.0 supports installing and configuring Windows Services and provides developers with more control over setting permissions during software installation
- Usually the kernel handles all thread scheduling, but 64-bit Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 only allow for applications with large concurrent threading requirements, such as a database to do its own scheduling.
That’s just scraping the surface. Let’s dive into some of the major features wherein Windows 7 takes advantage of the server OS, and ways in which Windows Server turns on new functionality in the client OS. READ MORE
