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Microsoft said Wednesday that the first release candidate of its Hyper-V hypervisor will be available for download.

This release will be the near-final code of the virtualization utility that Microsoft is building into Windows Server 2008. The final version will be available in August, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft released the beta of Hyper-V late last year, and it was also included with Windows Server 2008 when that software was launched last month.

The company has had to strip out some of the virtualization features it had originally planned in order to get a product to market this year and take on market leader VMWare.

People can download the release candidate starting at 10:00 a.m. PDT at Microsoft's Hyper-V page.

Update 7:00 a.m. Pacific: Microsoft said in December last year that it would ship Hyper-V within 180 days of the Windows Server 2008 product launch in late February.

Microsoft on Monday said it has released a beta version of the first service pack of Windows Vista to about 12,000 testers.

Microsoft had said back in August that it expected to start private testing of the service pack within a few weeks. The update is largely a collection of bug fixes and performance and compatibility improvements, but includes some minor new features such as support for the ability to encrypt multiple hard drive partitions using Vista's BitLocker feature.

In another expected move, Microsoft said that it has completed its first near-final "release candidate" version of Windows Server 2008. The "RC0" version is slated to be available for download from Microsoft's Web site within the next 24 hours.

Originally slated to be released this year, Microsoft has delayed the release of Windows Server 2008 until next year.

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft next week plans to issue its first Windows Server 2008 release candidate, a near-final version of its operating system, a senior executive at the software company said Thursday.

"We expect the release candidate next week," said Mike Neil, Microsoft's general manager of virtualization, in an appearance during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum here.

The release candidate will include a test version of software code-named Viridian and formally called Windows Server virtualization. This "hypervisor" allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously, a useful technology in improving server efficiency and eventually leading toward more flexible data center operations.

Neil showed a server running virtual machines on Viridian, one the bare-bones "reduced-footprint" version of Windows Server 2008 and another Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server. The software can take advantage of the horsepower of a four-processor Xeon system, Neil said.

Microsoft hasn't had a smooth time delivering either software to the market. In May, Microsoft stripped out several significant Viridian components from the first version of the technology, and in August, it delayed Windows Server 2008's release to manufacturers from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008.

Viridian is scheduled to ship in final form within 180 days of the final version of Windows Server 2008.

Longtime rivals and occasional collaborators Sun Microsystems and Microsoft announced on Wednesday that Sun will ship 64-bit servers with Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 operating system.

Within 90 days, Sun will offer Windows Server 2003 on its entire line of Sun x64 systems, the companies said in a release. Sun already certifies that Windows Servers will run on its hardware, but this agreement will allow Sun to preinstall the software and offer support to customers.

The two companies also committed to expanding their technical collaboration--first announced in 2004 but one which had not lived up to the initial hoopla--into virtualization.

In particular, the two companies said they will ensure that Solaris will work well as a "guest" with Microsoft's virtualization technology and Windows will work well in a virtualized Solaris environment.

The move is a major strategic shift for Sun which has a history of boasting of its decision in the 1990s to shun Windows in favor of Unix and has derided other hardware makers for aiding Microsoft by distributing its operating system.

Sun's expanded business push around x86 servers and the growing importance of virtualization prompted the change, said John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun's Systems business, in a conference call with media and analysts.

"It's completely natural for us to have a business relationship around the operating system we're virtualizing. So the timing felt right for that," Fowler said. He also implied that Windows Server has matured to the point to satisfy the high-end demands of customers that run Sun hardware.

As part of the arrangement, the two companies will roughly double the size of an interoperability lab first set up in 2004 to take on the work on virtualization. Executives declined to number how many people will work there except to say that the lab houses both Sun and Microsoft employees.

Other areas of collaboration include ensuring that Sun's storage systems work well with Windows and joint work on Internet Protocol TV.

Fowler declined to say whether the OEM agreement will extend when Microsoft ships Windows Server 2008 next year.

During the call, Fowler and Andrew Lees, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Server & Tools Marketing and Solutions group, said the partnership between the two companies has been continuing with little notice from the media.

Specifically, the two firms' collaboration on interoperability has yielded better-working products in the areas of systems management, application development, storage, and directories.

For Sun, the Windows distribution agreement is another move in its efforts to expand its business--once built primarily around proprietary hardware--by partnering.

Last month, IBM said that it will ship Solaris on its servers.

Windows Server 2008 is apparently going to live up to its name, with Microsoft acknowledging Wednesday that it won't be able to finish work on the product this year, as scheduled.

"Windows Server 2008, which we have been saying would Release to Manufacturing (RTM) by the end of the calendar year, is now slated to RTM in the first quarter of calendar year 2008," Microsoft said on its Windows Server blog.

As for the reasoning, the company said "while we're very happy with the feedback we're getting and the overall quality of the latest product builds, we would rather spend a little more time to meet the high quality bar that our customers and partners deserve and expect."

Then the company related the analogy that one of its program managers, Alex Hinrichs, said. "It's like a brisket," he told a colleague. "It just needs a little more time to bake."

Hopefully, Microsoft doesn't create too many vegetarians (i.e. Linux users) in the mean time.

DENVER--Confirming what many had expected, Microsoft announced on Tuesday that the next version of its server operating system, Windows Server 2008, won't formally launch until next year.

Microsoft said it will launch the product, which it has said will be finalized before the end of the year, at an event in Los Angeles on February 27. The company will also launch Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 at the same event. The company made the announcement at its Worldwide Partner Conference here.

The new operating system, formerly code-named Longhorn Server, includes the PowerShell scripting language, role-based deployment options as well as network access protection features.

Update: A Microsoft representative said Tuesday that the code for Windows Server 2008 is still set to be finished by the end of the year.

LOS ANGELES--For the second time in recent days, Microsoft has inadvertently confirmed Windows Server 2008 as the official name for Longhorn Server.

Microsoft France had the name up on its Web site as of 10:30 p.m. PT Sunday, though it may well take it down (Credit to bink.nu and other Microsoft enthusiast sites for bringing attention to the posting). The move follows an earlier slip-up on its U.S. press site.

The company is expected to officially give the product its name this week at the Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.