Final Results and Overall Mark

Well we have reached the end of the preview. Here are my final comments and notes for Microsoft Codename "Whistler" Server and Advanced Server Preview. 

Final Comments

How It Grades
		N/A

As you can see from this article, Whistler provides a lot of enhancements over its predecessors.  The deployment capabilities have been improved, and complicated, depending on who you talk to.  Administration has been simplified and IIS has been extended to provide more support for Applications in the office.  When I first sat down to look at Whistler, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Microsoft does not seem to be touting it as much as it has been touting XP Personal Edition or XP Home Edition, but Whistler seems to have enough improvements to rank it side by side with the client counterparts.  Whistler has not been exposed nearly as much on the Internet as the Client versions, hopefully that will change soon.

Oh, one more thing.  One of my readers, Leslie, wanted me to mention that Windows XP will support IPv6.  I do know that is a concern for most people today.  Microsoft will support IPv6 for RPC communication.  There will also be the IPv6 driver and utilities for any developers wishing to develop applications that take advantage of IPv6. There will also be features in Whistler that allow for add-ons of GetAddrInfo and GetNameInfo from TCP/IP of IPv6.  This is a socket interface that makes the 128-bit size of the new IP addresses visible to any applications that need it.

 Here are some links to some web sites that discuss this in more detail:

http://www.ietf.org/

http://research.microsoft.com/msripv6/versions.htm