Tony Carter posted on February 19, 2011 10:22
Three days ago Microsoft® released service pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This release includes all previous updates as well as two major features – Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX - for those of us who spend a lot of time in virtualized environments.
Dynamic Memory – This new feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 allows memory to be allocated on the fly, is secure, and has been reported to increase server density by 40%. Since we do a lot of Web and SharePoint development and web hosting, this feature will allow us to maximize our hardware, and at the same time keep up our high availability promise to our customers. You can read more about this on Microsoft’s® Virtualization Team Blog.
RemoteFX – This user experience enhancement feature for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 truly brings Remote Desktops into the future by allowing virtualization of high end graphics processing that would normally be available only on thick clients. This includes rich media support for Silverlight and Adobe Flash and other graphics-intensive applications. You can read more about this from Mirosoft’s® Cloud and Platform Team Blog.
The one advantage that is not listed but applies to ours and a lot of companies that do software development for Microsoft’s® Windows Server and Windows 7 operating system, in a virtualized environment, is the resolutions of a bug that causes performance issues when Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V is the main operating system on laptops and computers with high end graphics. Read more about the bug and resolution on Tristan Watkin’s Blog.