Microsoft giving away Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free

In an obvious move to grab some of VMWare’s marketshare, Microsoft is giving away Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free (requires free registration). To the surprise of many, Microsoft is offering full support for running standard and enterprise versions of Linux from Red Hat and Novell. It gets better. Microsoft will be releasing tools very soon to make running Linux a little easier under their virtualization software (think something along the lines of VMWare Tools). This move represents a complete 180 degree turn for Microsoft in terms of supporting Linux under Virtual Server. Before this announcement, customers could install Linux under Virtual Server but could not get any support or tools for Linux VMs.

Although VMWare offers VMWare Player for free, there are obvious limitations that can only be overcome by purchasing VMWare Workstation. I’ve been using demo versions of VMWare Workstation off and on since it was first announced many years ago and I still believe it to be a more robust solution than Microsoft’s offering. Outside of the world of poor EECS students and cheap technophiles, will this move be enough for Microsoft to successfully hurt VMWare amongst corporate customers?

Update (4.3.2006): Diane Greene, President of VMWare, has started her own blog with a post bringing up many valid points on the issue of virtual machine formats and integration of VM services into the operating system (deja vu? Netscape vs. IE). The posting was partly provoked as a response to Microsoft having licensed its Virtual Hard Disk file format to XenSource but not to VMWare. However, VMWare has released its VMDK format specification.

Microsoft’s press release on today’s move in the virtualization space gives a few more details. Linux guest support tools will be available for download shortly. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until Service Pack 1 (SP1) is released early next year to have a complete set of Linux tools but the initial release should improve video and mouse issues.

Update (4.4.2006): Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB917437 describes the supported Linux distributions:

Enterprise distributions

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 (update 6)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (update 6)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
  • SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9

Standard distributions

  • Red Hat Linux 7.3
  • Red Hat Linux 9.0
  • SuSE Linux 9.2
  • SuSE Linux 9.3
  • SuSE Linux 10.0

Build 1.0 of the tools are contained within a 2.64MB file with the name VMAdditionsForLinux.MSI. Follow the instructions to join the program at Microsoft Connect.

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April 3, 2006 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets 

Comments

3 Responses to “Microsoft giving away Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free”

  1. Chad Kitching on April 4th, 2006 7:33 am

    Well, if VMware Player isn’t enough, there’s always the VMware Server. The server product has many of the VMware Workstation features, and a few of the VMware ESX/GSX features. And it’s free, too. Only problem is that it’s still in beta, so debugging is still enabled and that slows it down a bit (but you can disable most of the debugging if you want).

    One notable thing VMware still has that Microsoft is lacking is virtual SMP support. Even the VMware Server product lets you expose SMP support to the virtual machine, whereas you’re limited to a single processor for each Virtual Server VM. VMware’s big limitation is that Microsoft will provide you virtually no support for any of their products unless you can prove the problem happens on a non-virtualised platform (which seems a bit petty to me – why not treat it as just another hardware platform). Microsoft’s Virtual Server also integrates with many of Microsoft’s other products (like SMS, MOM, etc), which might be a benefit if you’re running an all Microsoft platform.

  2. Hisham on April 4th, 2006 7:57 am

    Chad, I very much agree with your comment. I forgot to mention VMWare Server was available as a free download. I haven’t tried it out yet but do you know the differences between Workstation and Server varieties off the top of your head? It seems obvious that VMWare has better coverage of their marketplace, more features and a more robust package. However, if I’m not mistake, corporations with MSDN subscriptions and site licenses already had access to Virtual Server. So who does this really benefit?

    Another area where Microsoft is falling behind in the virtualization space is their lack of hypervisor support until Longhorn Server’s first service pack in 2008 or 2009. By that time, VMWare and XenSource will have extremely mature products supporting hardware virtualization and Microsoft will be late to the party again.

    I know news for this has release has drawn some comparison by me and others of the Netscape versus Internet Explorer wars. However, I’ve rethought my position. Unlike web browsers, currently virtualization is not usable by the average home computer user. Even if Microsoft happens to bundle its VM software into its server products, corporate buyers will still look to solutions that best address their requirements instead of using whatever was included in the box. As long as VMWare maintains its edge, they have nothing to worry about.

  3. Computerworld Blogs on April 4th, 2006 10:21 am

    Hey, Microsoft! Virtualize this! (and no need to whistle)…

    Why not goof off for five minutes and read IT Blogwatch, in which Microsoft drops a virtual bomb at LinuxWorld. Not to mention a man who’ll never need to whistle to find his car key, because it’s implanted in his hand…
    …