News

Microsoft To Release Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 This Week

• By Kurt Mackie
• February 22, 2011

A Microsoft blog posted on Monday indicates the company will release its new Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 product to TechNet and MSDN subscribers "a bit later this week." However, it is unclear exactly what day the product will be made available; as of Tuesday, the Download Center links in Microsoft's blog led nowhere.

Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 is a shared computing solution for libraries, labs and classrooms. In an arrangement designed to save organizations money, the server connects to dumb terminals consisting of a screen, keyboard and mouse, and not to individual PCs. However, those running applications such as Microsoft Office on the system still have to pay for that licensing separately.

Microsoft already released Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 to original equipment manufacturing (OEM) partners earlier this month. The company expects the public to start seeing server hardware products from those OEMs in mid-April of this year.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's volume licensing customers will be able to download Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 on March 1.

Microsoft's blog claims that a trial version of Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 is currently available at the Microsoft Download Center, but all that was available at press time were downloads of the Planning Guide and Deployment Guide. The evaluation version can be upgraded to the product by purchasing volume licensing, so testers don't have to reinstall it, according to the blog.

Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 will be available from Microsoft and its partners via open commercial, academic and OEM academic licensing. The server is offered in two editions: The "standard" edition supports up to 10 connected sessions, while the "premium" edition works with up to 20 connected sessions. There appears to be no academic licensing option available for the standard edition.

The actual number of connections available to a Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 deployment is limited based on the constraints of the hardware, Microsoft's blog suggests. Microsoft's Planning Guide suggests three 64-bit hardware scenarios, based on the types of applications deployed: "productivity," "mixed" and "video intensive." The optimal server configuration for video-intensive apps appears to be a quad-core or eight-core CPU with 8 GB of RAM. Microsoft recommends using RemoteFX or equivalent Remote Desktop Protocol technology when running 15 to 20 remotely connected thin clients with full-motion video.

Premium edition users will get domain-join and Hyper-V virtualization capabilities, which aren't available in the standard edition. Only the premium edition can "be a Hyper-V host used to run virtual machines," according to the Deployment Guide. However, both editions "can be deployed as a guest operating system running on a Hyper-V host server," the guide explains.

Microsoft provides a list of the new server features here. The one feature favored most by teachers is "block all stations." It freezes all student screens to get their attention, according to a blog post by James Duffus, group program manager for Windows MultiPoint.