Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM

It’s the big news of this week : Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 are RTM (meaning complete) and available on Technet and MSDN. It was announced on Gug’s blog on monday : https://blogs.msdn.com/b/stevengu/archive/2013/09/09/download-windows-8-1-rtm-visual-studio-2013-rc-and-windows-server-2012-r2-rtm-today.aspx 

It means that if you are a subscriber you can start downloading the binaries and work on your migration procedures in order to be ready for the General Availability of the products.

It also means that you can start testing some of the new capabilities of Windows Server 2012 R2 in your lab. For example:

• Enhanced hypervisor with the generation 2 virtual machines
• Storage tiering to allow a mix of different type of disks to improve speed while keeping the cost of storage down
• New printing capabilities allowing a client to connect to a printer in a branch even if the server is central.
• Remote desktop services
• …

You can read more about the new capabilities of Windows Server 2012 R2 at the following locations :

• https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn250019.aspx 
• https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/what-s-new-in-windows-server-2012-r2-jump-start#fbid=TuiffRMNuZx
• And don’t forget about some of the videos that explain in more details how things works behind the curtains: https://blogs.technet.com/b/dcaro/archive/2013/06/11/windows-server-2012-r2-first-look.aspx 

The innovation brought by the server are simply enhanced with the new sweet improvements made on the client side with Windows 8.1. Read more about the client improvements at the following locations :

• https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/dn140266.aspx
• https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/product-training/windows

Download those new versions, test them and implement those new features !