Evaluate Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Public Preview today

Published: May 13, 2008

Windows Essential Business Sever 2008 is an integrated and affordable solution that offers the Microsoft software midsize businesses require - preconfigured, integrated and manageable from a single administrative console, and at a significant discount compared to standalone products. And when you download the latest public preview, you're automatically registered to access valuable public preview resources assembled in one convenient location.

Please review the Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Public Preview system requirements before you proceed. Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration.

You will also need the product keys to activate the Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Public Preview software which will be made available to you on the download page. The Public Preview software is being made available so you may test and explore the software. As this is not final release code, you may not test the software in a live operating environment.

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The Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Public Preview software is available in the following language:

English

Microsoft TechNet

A little more:

Public Preview Software – Release Candidate 0
Version: 6.0
Date Published: 5/12/2008
Language: English
Download Size: 11092.1 MB


Files in This Download
The links in this section correspond to separate files available in this download. Download the files most appropriate for you.

File Name:...........................................File Size
Management Server (Disc1).iso.....3680.3 MB
Messaging Server (Disc3).iso.........3563.5 MB
Schema Upgrade Tool (Disc4).iso...7.5 MB
Security Server (Disc2).iso............3840.8 MB

Installation Steps
All of the product documentation is hosted on TechNet here.
To get started you should review the Release Notes and the Installation Documentation.

Please see the Resource Page for access to the Essential Business Server newsgroup for support, information on submitting product feedback, and much more.

Use the following product keys to activate your trial of the Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Public Preview software. As this product is an all-in-one integrated multi-server, you will need all three product keys for activation (management server key, security server key, messaging server key).

Product Key for Management Server: [5 groups of 5 numbers/letters]
Product Key for Security Server: [5 groups of 5 numbers/letters]
Product Key for Messaging Server: [5 groups of 5 numbers/letters]


More than 5 users?
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Standard will allow you assign a maximum of 5 temporary user or device CALs. For additional CALs, please use the CAL Pack product keys listed below. The product keys can only be installed once per installation.

There are two types of CALs available:
User CALs
With user CALs, you acquire a CAL for individuals who are given named access to your server. Licensed users can access the server from any device. User CALs might make the most sense for an organization that has many roaming employees who need access to the corporate network from mobile devices or employees who use multiple devices to access the network.

Device CALs
With device CALs, you acquire a CAL for every device--such as laptops, desktop computers, and Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones--that needs access to your server. With this option, any user can access the server on the licensed device.

CAL Pack Product Keys:
50 User CAL Pack: [5 groups of 5 numbers/letters]
50 Device CAL Pack: [5 groups of 5 numbers/letters]

I hadn’t realized that this Server OS requires 3- x64 PC’s to operate when I downloaded this Public Preview RC0, so I tried just installing the first disk, the Management Server on a partition on the test rig.
It installed Server 2008 (S08) at the start & ended up w/ a Management Server install (after the S08 install) it had about 20 additional items to setup.



I got stuck on the first one the Network Adapter & received a Network Adapter Selection Error, I tried both of the nForce Adapters I have available (1- was the virtual adapter) for this MB.

SOoo I Installed Vista x64 & decided to try using VMware Workstation & found that it doesn’t come in a x64 flavor so I ended up trying the VMware Server & could not get any joy using that either.

Has anyone else had any success installing this Public Preview Software?

That would be quite an undertaking hardware wise by one person. I probably could come up with the minimum number of harddrives, CPU's, motherboards, graphics cards, and cases, but the memory, I may be lacking a few sticks of ram.
Too bad there isn't a way for 3 people to build one system each and connect them over the internet.

yeshuas wrote:

<snip> but the memory, I may be lacking a few sticks of ram. Too bad there isn't a way for 3 people to build one system each and connect them over the internet.

It does need a lot of Ram alright

Server Hardware Requirements
Server Hardware
The servers that are running Windows Essential Business Server must meet the following minimum hardware requirements:

Hardware Minimum Requirement
Physical servers: Three

Processor: 64-bit (x64)

System memory: 4 gigabytes (GB) (Management Server and Messaging Server)
2 GB (Security Server)

Storage capacity:
Server | Partition Minimum Partition Size (GB)
Management Server | system volume 50

Management Server | data volume 30

Security Server | system volume 50

Security Server | data volume 10

Messaging Server | system volume 50

Messaging Server | data volume 20


*this is interesting too

Creating a Virtualized Instance of Windows Essential Business Server
To create a virtualized instance of Windows Essential Business Server on your physical server, complete the following steps:

Install Hyper-V RC0 in Windows Server 2008

Enable the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008

Create the virtual machines for Windows Essential Business Server

Configure the virtual machines for Windows Essential Business Server

Install Windows Essential Business Server on the virtual machines

*(more details @ the links)

I could reconfigure my P5W DH deluxe it would certainly hold enough ram and HDD to be the Management or messaging server. Right now it has as you can see by my signature a Q6600; 4 GB Ram, 4 HDD, (I think it will hold at least 8 SATA HDD's) Then I have another system with the E6600 CPU and 2 HDD's with 2 GB ram. I could use another system I have with a Pentium D 930 CPU and 2 GB ram with 2 HDD's

Some server systems are just amazing in terms of their RAM configurations. Here's a fairly typical one:

Memory capacity: Sixteen Fully Buffered DIMM (FBDIMM) sockets for up to 64GB of registered ECC DDR2 667MHz memory

Some servers can also have their RAM configured in various RAID configurations so data is held in RAM and directly accessed from there instead of from hard drives. It's quite incredible for us who are used to using desktops. I know zip about all this but I like to gawk

I would like to try and build it just for my own satisfaction of seeing if I could do it

Sounds like this is a step up from Small Business Server. Instead of having everything packaged into one machine, you delegate different tasks to various servers. Much better in terms of security and system redundancy. Losing one box doesn't instantly mean you lose everything.

Management server would be the Domain Controller, I'm guessing, messaging server would take the place if the cut down version of Exchange server that you get in SBS. Security Server? Not sure, probably incorporates some features offered by the ForeFront range of security products, maybe even has preconfigured policies for Network Access Protection.

I'd like to have a look at this but I don't have the spares resources. I could stick it on our VMServer here at work, I guess.

Last night I tried installing this again

Picked up another SATA Hdd (160GB) to test on.

First installed Server 2008 x64 & Dl & installed the Hyper-V RC that is (publicly) available to test.
Found that the Intel CPU in my Test Rig doesn't have hardware-assisted vitalization (Core 2 Duo E4500), so the Hyper-V roll wouldn't install.




Formatted Server 2008 away & just tried installing the EBS 2008, Management Server (MS), that worked until I reached the desktop & it couldn't find the Network Adapter.. again, I showed it several times where the .inf was & it looked like it was installing but the MS never got that memo, so that failed & ended my attempts of installing this one.

I think I'll just wait for the new SBS 2008 RC that is suppose to go public next week (I read somewhere) & test that one instead.