Microsoft Windows 8 Professional

By : Anonymous

On : 04:57

In : Featured , OS

Introduction

Windows 8 Pro is comparable to Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate and is targeted towards enthusiasts and business users; it includes all the features of Windows 8. Additional features include the ability to receive Remote Desktop connections, the ability to participate in a Windows Server domain, Encrypting File System, Hyper-V, and Virtual Hard Disk Booting, Group Policy as well as BitLocker and BitLocker To Go. Windows Media Center functionality will be available only for Windows 8 Pro as a separate software package.

Features

Windows To Go: Imagine, having a fully manageable corporate Windows 8 desktop literally in your shirt (or pants) pocket (hint: it’ll be on a bootable external USB stick). Windows-to-go will allow organizations to support the “Bring Your Own Device/PC” trend. Moreover, businesses will now be able to give part-time or contract workers access to the corporate environment without compromising security. IMHO this one feature alone could justify SA/Enterprise for many SMB customers. Oh, and it’s VERY secure – it doesn’t interact at all with the local hard drive and it has built-in shutdown timeouts among other things.

VDI enhancements: I’m seeing a LOT of interest in VDI even in SMB these days, so these new enhancements in Windows 8 should really open up lots of opportunity in that space. In fact, I’ve heard that you can deploy an SMB-level VDI solution in 7 clicks (on the server) in Windows 8 – this should finally allow SMBs to take advantage of this heretofore “Big IT” functionality. So, in Windows 8, VDI enhancements in Microsoft RemoteFX and Windows Server 2012 provide users with a rich desktop experience with the ability to play 3D graphics, use USB peripherals, and use touch-enabled devices across any type of network (LAN or WAN) for VDI scenarios. WOW.

Side-Loading of internal (Windows 8 style) apps: Not sure if this will be as great a boon to the smaller SMB shops without dev staff, but it could certainly be a boon to Partners who have dev capabilities, In Windows 8, domain joined PCs and tablets running Windows 8 Enterprise will be able to download and install corporate, or custom, Windows 8 style apps in addition to apps available from the Windows Store, this is called “side-loading” and, of course, is secure and controlled by policy.

So the above were new functionalities in Windows 8 Enterprise, the following features were also available in Windows 7 Enterprise Edition as well, but are still key functionalities that your customer should be aware of that require Enterprise client licensing:

DirectAccess (DA): Like VDI above, DA has been around, but previously required Enterprise Edition servers, which as you know you’ll no longer need. Moreover, DA needed certificates and other infrastructure requirements (e.g. IPv6) which also served to put it beyond the reach of many SMB IT shops. So for those of you not already familiar with it, DA allows remote users to seamlessly access resources inside a corporate network without having to launch a separate VPN (yes, you read that right, no more need to purchase, deploy, and maintain and otherwise update or manage that VPN infrastructure (server or client) – this is HUGE and can have a direct ROI impact, not to mention the increase in productivity). AND it helps IT administrators keep remote users’ PCs in compliance by applying the latest policies, software updates, essentially allowing management of that PC anytime it’s online, just as if it was inside your corpnet. IMHO this could be the second “silver bullet” for selling Enterprise Edition. And I kind of skipped over it but, like VDI, DA is now much easier to deploy – it only needs Windows Server 2012 Standard, no need for certificates (can leverage AD) and can be implemented on an existing IPv4 infrastructure. YOU should really check into this for customers who have any clients who work outside the corporate network, it’s a spoiler – we have been using it inside Microsoft for some time now.

BranchCache: For customers who have remote locations (like branch offices), BranchCache allows local servers, or even users’ PCs to cache files, websites, and other content from central servers, so content is not repeatedly downloaded across the wide area network (WAN). When used with Windows Server 2012, Windows 8 brings several improvements to BranchCache to streamline the deployment process, optimize bandwidth over WAN connections and ensure better security and scalabilty.

AppLocker: Again, is not new but it can help mitigate issues by restricting the files and apps that users or groups are allowed to run by leveraging “policy”.