Frequently Asked Questions
Windows "Longhorn" Server

Revision - 1.0

Windows "Longhorn" Server

*The following may contain some inaccuracies and/or preliminary information that does not reflect the exact functionality or feature set of the final product or prerelease versions.

Q: What is Windows “Longhorn” Server?

A: Windows Server “Longhorn” is Microsoft’s next generation server platform. With Windows Server “Longhorn”, Microsoft hopes to offer enhanced stability, security, and an expanded feature set for developers and network administrators alike. This new product is expected to step up Microsoft’s competition with Open-Source software.

Q: What sort of features is Microsoft planning on incorporating into Windows “Longhorn” Server?

A: According to Microsoft, Windows Server Longhorn plans to provide customers with:

• A rock-solid server foundation that is secure, manageable, responsive, interoperable, and compatible.
• A platform that supports rapid development and delivery of smart and connected applications.
• Agility, to increase operational efficiency and IT effectiveness.
• Policy-based networking, improved branch management and enhanced end user collaboration.

Q: How are Windows Server “Longhorn” and Windows Vista related?

A: Microsoft Windows Vista is the client version of the next generation Windows operating system, and is primarily targeted for use by regular users and as workstations. Server “Longhorn” is the server distribution of Microsoft’s next generation Windows operating system, and, being targeted for business uses and network infrastructure, serves as a platform for various networking nuts and bolts, web services, Microsoft enterprise  connectivity and productivity products and services, among others.

Q: What’s this I hear about self-healing file systems in Windows “Longhorn” Server?

A: According to Microsoft, “the system can fix itself on the fly if there is a bad sector on a hard disk or even a processor that is showing a high rate of self-correcting errors”. According to a CNET article on the matter, “Essentially, "self-healing" means Microsoft's defrag and chkdsk, or check disk, tools are running in the background”.

Q: What are some of the new security features planned for Windows “Longhorn” Server?

A: One interesting security feature of the next genereation of Windows Server is called “Network Access Protection” or NAP. This feature allows administrators to perform a ‘health check’ on computers connected to a network, blocking clients who do not meet defined security rules.

Q: What is Microsoft’s Security Token Service (STS) and how does it relate to Longhorn Server?

A: Microsoft’s Security Token Service will be an extension to the Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) which Microsoft plans on shipping with Windows Server 2003 R2. STS will offer extended functionality to ADFS, which allows users to create trust relationships with other Active Directory users and enable authentication across corporate boundaries. These extensions will include extended federation and privacy support, integrated resource discovery and management, among other features.

Q: What is the Longhorn Server ‘Off-line File Feature’?

A: Offline Files is a feature of Windows Server "Longhorn" that allows a user to access files on a remote network shared folder even when the client has no connectivity with the server. The client computer caches the files from the server and stores them locally. Once Offline Files has been configured, the caching is completely transparent to the user accessing the files.

Q: Has there been a Beta release of Longhorn Server yet?

A: Yes. Microsoft released a beta version of Longhorn Server, Windows Server “Longhorn” Beta 1 on July 27, 2005. This Beta is available to MSDN subscribers and testers.

Q: When is Windows Server “Longhorn” due for release to the public?

A: Currently Microsoft is saying that Longhorn server will be released sometime in 2007, after the release of the client version of the operating system, Microsoft Windows Vista.

Q: What processor architectures will be supported by Windows “Longhorn” Server?

A: Microsoft Windows Server “Longhorn” will support both 64-bit and 32-bit x86 processor architectures. Additionally, IA-64 architecture will be supported in the Datacenter Edition of Windows Server “Longhorn”.

Q: Longhorn Server and IIS7.0? What gives?

A: Longhorn Server delivers a unified Web platform that integrates Internet Information Services (IIS), ASP.NET, Windows Communication Foundation, and Windows SharePoint Services. IIS 7 is a major enhancement to the Windows Web server and plays a central role in unifying the Web platform. Key innovations in IIS 7.0 include:

• Unified platform delivering a single, consistent developer and administrator model for Web solutions
• Enhanced security and componentization to reduce attack surface
• Flexible extensibility to enable customization and extension
• Simplified problem resolution through powerful diagnostic and troubleshooting
• Delegated administration for hosting and enterprise workloads
• Improved configuration and server farm support

Q: What is the Windows Activation Service (WAS)?

A: The Windows Activation Service (WAS) is a Windows Vista / Longhorn Server system service that provides process activation and health management services for all types of message-activated applications. These services, provided by IIS7, will provide applications with intelligent resource management, on-demand activation, health-monitoring, and automatic failure detection and recycling.

Q: Does Longhorn Server provide any enhancements in the administration and deployment of Windows-based server farms?

A: Yes. Through IIS7, Longhorn Server will significantly improve the administration and deployment of content and configuration information in Windows-based server farms. These new features will provide a drastic simplification of current manual synchronization techniques used by current network administrators.

Q: Microsoft says that Longhorn Server will provide a significant improvement in security. How will the new technology provide this improvement?

A: One way Microsoft is providing increased security with IIS7 in Windows Server “Longhorn” is the abstraction of internet services into 40+ feature modules, each of which, may be selectively installed or removed from a server. This enables administrators to deploy only those components that are absolutely necessary, thus reducing the size of the target for malicious users.

Q: Will the next generation of Microsoft IIS provide administrators with simplified troubleshooting and diagnostic information about their servers?

A: Yes. Longhorn Server, though IIS7, enables developers and IT Professionals to more easily troubleshoot errand Web sites and applications.  IIS7 provides a clear view of internal diagnostic information about IIS, and collects and surfaces detailed diagnostic events to aid troubleshooting problematic servers.

Q: Are there any major changes coming to the Core Web server in Windows “Longhorn” Server?

A: Yes. With IIS7, the Core Web server has been migrated from a monolithic web server into 40+ feature modules and includes a brand new Win32 API for building core Server Modules. All of the existing IIS core server features have been ported on top of this new Win32 API as discreet feature modules, enabling customers to add, remove, and even replace IIS feature modules. IIS 7.0 also includes support for development of core server extensions using the .NET Framework.  IIS 7.0 has integrated the existing IHttpModule API, enabling managed code modules full fidelity access to all events in the request pipeline – for all requests.

Q: What sort of information will the re-vamped diagnostics tools provide to administrators?

A: IIS 7.0 in Longhorn Server includes a new Runtime State and Control API (RSCA), which provides real-time state information about application pools, worker processes, sites, application domains, and even running requests. This COM API is being exposed via WMI, the new command-line utility, and the new administration tool for quick and easy status regardless of the management environment. RSCA allows developers to see, in real time, running requests on the server.

Q: Will Longhorn Server provide administrators and developers with the ability to trace server requests dynamically and in real-time?

A: IIS 7.0 includes detailed trace events throughout the request and response path, allowing developers to trace a request as it makes it way to IIS, through the IIS request processing pipeline, into any existing page level code, and back out to the response.  These detailed trace events allow developers to understand not only the request path and any error information that was raised as a result of the request, but elapsed time and other debug information to assist in troubleshooting all types of errors and hangs.

Q: The new technologies offered by Microsoft in Longhorn server are great, but how will these technologies interact with older ones in terms of compatibility?

A: IIS 7.0 is built to be compatible with existing releases.  All existing ASP, ASP.NET 1.1, and ASP.NET 2.0 applications are expected to run on IIS 7.0 without any code changes.

Q: Where can I find some screen shots of Longhorn Server?

A: ActiveWin has some for your viewing pleasure.

Q: How has IPv6 been upgraded and integrated into Longhorn Server?

A: The implementation of IPv6 in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 is a dual stack architecture, which has separate protocol components for IPv4 and IPv6 that are installed through the Network Connections folder. The separate IPv4 and IPv6 protocol components had their own Transport layer that included Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and framing layer.

The Next Generation TCP/IP stack is a single protocol component installed through the Network Connections folder that supports the dual IP layer architecture; in which both IPv4 and IPv6 share common Transport and Framing layers.

Q: What is Server Core?

A: Server Core is a new minimal server installation option for Windows Server "Longhorn" Beta 1. Server Core provides an environment for running specific Server Roles, reducing the servicing and management requirements for those Server Roles. Server Core does not include the traditional full user interface. Once configured, the server can then be managed locally and remotely from the command line, as well as remotely using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) or a Terminal Server connection. Benefits include: Reduced servicing, reduced attack surface, reduce disk space, and reduced management.

Q: What are some of the new features of Windows Longhorn Server Offline Files?

A: In Microsoft Windows® XP, if a single file cannot be synchronized then the entire server is considered offline and no shares on the server can be accessed, whether these shares are cached in local store or not. In "Longorn" versions of Windows operating systems, file availability is determined at the individual file level. If a single file is unavailable, yet other files in the same share and other shares are available, those files will still be available online. This provides better interoperation with the Distributed File System (DFS).

Q: What is new in Windows Deployment Services in Windows "Longhorn" Server?

A: Windows Deployment Services for Windows Server "Longhorn" Beta 1 includes several modifications to RIS features. These modifications support the deployment of Microsoft Windows Code Name "Longhorn" and Windows Server "Longhorn" operating systems. These changes include the following:

• Native support for the Windows PE as a boot operating system.

• Native support for the Windows Imaging (WIM) format.

• An extensible and higher-performing PXE server component.

• A new boot menu format for selecting boot operating systems.

• A new graphical user interface you can use to select and deploy images.

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