An Early Look at Windows 10 for Business

Microsoft's Tuesday's event was all about the enterprise; Redmond's meat-and-potatoes base. A first look at the Windows Technical Preview for Enterprise client and Windows Server Technical Preview show a host of cosmetic changes designed to appease business customers who were outraged over the UI of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, both of which were criticized as impractical in enterprise environments.

And has Microsoft taken heed! Windows 10 Enterprise client and Server are step backs to the mouse-and-keyboard user experience of Windows 7, but retain the many security, performance, and ease-of-management capabilities that Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 delivered. In fact, the latest server OS has many under-the-hood enhancements that IT professionals have demanded.

Though both OSes are in their nascent, preview stages, I took an early look and installed and configured the enterprise client and server as Hyper-V machines in an existing Windows Server 2012 R2 domain. During my test drive one thing became clear: Both operating systems are positioned to become potential darlings to Microsoft's vast business customer base.

Windows Server Technical Preview
As of Oct. 1, MSDN subscribers can download several flavors of the latest Windows Server, including the Windows Server Technical Preview, Windows Server Datacenter Technical Preview, and Microsoft Hyper-V Server Technical Preview.

The Server Technical Preview is available as an ISO image, which was simple to install on Server 2012 R2's Hyper-V. The first thing most will notice is that the tile-based Start screen is nowhere to be found in the interface. Instead, the desktop appears with the familiar Start menu of pre-Server 2012 OSes.

The power button, which baffled many a seasoned Windows server administrator when it was buried in the tiled wonderland of the Server 2012 Start screen, is prominently on top of the Start menu for easy access. Of course, none of this matters for those who go with a core install and do most of their management through the command line. However, for those administering smaller networks and sites, the familiar UI will be comforting and is just easier to manage.

The Start menu has all the administrator tools that were previously in the Start screen in an organized, listed view. The Administrative Tools and Windows System folders are where the most common management utilities such as Control Panel and Local Security Policy reside.

In case you happen to love the graphics of Windows 8, don't fret: You can still evoke Charms and the tiled Start screen. In the Taskbar and Start menu Properties, by default, the option to use the Start menu instead of the Start screen is checked, which is why there is no Start screen on install.

Uncheck it to make the tiles appear. Charms are controlled in this property window as well, by checking the option, "When I point to the upper-right corner, show the charms."

Aside from those adjustments, cosmetically, there is nothing different in Server Technical Preview than Windows Server 2012. There is still the graphics-heavy Server Manager to manage server roles and services. Through Server Manager, I was easily able to add the new Windows Server Preview as a member server in an existing Windows Server 2012 R2-level domain.

Deep within the new server OS lays many new features and enhancements. These are mostly additions that Server 2012 administrators have requested. The entire rundown of these new capabilities are on TechNet, but there are a few of note:

• Admins can now configure Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) to authenticate users stored in Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories.
• There's a new Virtual Machine configuration format in Hyper-V designed to increase the efficiency of reading and writing virtual machine configuration data.
• The ability to add or remove network adapters and memory (even if Dynamic Memory is not enabled) on and from running virtual machines in Hyper-V, has been added.
• In DNS, you can create DNS policies to enable location-aware DNS, traffic management, load balancing, and other scenarios.
• Storage admins can set storage QoS policies on a Scale-Out File Server and assign them to one or more virtual disks on Hyper-V virtual machines.

Windows Technical Preview for Enterprise (Client)

Windows Technical Preview for Enterprise (Client)
I also took a look at the enterprise client. It's available from MSDN as 32-bit or 64-bit. The 64-bit version is about 3.8GB.

As in the consumer edition, you are likely to notice right away, the changed Start menu. It's a fusion of the Windows 7 Start menu with the tiles of Windows 8.

The bulk of additional interface changes are within PC Settings menu items. For example, the "Accounts" option is renamed to "Users and Accounts."

There are even more changes to Network settings and HomeGroups. Under "Network," there is an additional item called Devices. When I click it, I see my Ethernet adapter, but perhaps in a later release the feature will serve as a graphical network map of all devices on the same network.

HomeGroups has undergone a significant change in the Windows 10 client. In Windows 8, a click on HomeGroups reveals a screen where you enter the password to join a HomeGroup. In the Technical Preview, there are several toggle buttons that allow you to control which content you share in a HomeGroup and if you want to allow your multimedia content to stream to other devices in the HomeGroup.

Of course, these types of permissions are dictated by policies on a corporate network. I joined the new enterprise client to a Windows Server 2012 R2 domain. The new client OS took any Group Policy changes I made across the domain, as well.

Microsoft has touted a lot of capabilities in the new client OS for business. Some of these include securing data across any device a user logs into, more control over Windows Update, and more robust Mobile Device Management. These changes will not involve not just the latest Windows client, but services such as Windows Intune and System Center.

One feature that Microsoft announced that may be of interest to PC multitaskers is the four-window snap screen. With Windows 8, you can snap two screens to either side of the display for a side-by-side view. Microsoft demo'ed this capability in Windows 10 with four windows, but it does not seem to work in the preview yet.

What Redmond Still Needs to Do to Entice Business
So far, from working with the preview versions of the server and the enterprise client, it looks as though Microsoft is striving to restore the faith of business and IT customers. The new previews look to be a great start. However, Microsoft still needs to deliver a hassle-free experience for customers to upgrade. The End-of-Life for free Windows 7 support is coming next year, and we are sure to hear talk about the demise of additional support options. To assuage some of the PR damage of Windows 8, Microsoft must allow enterprises a direct upgrade path from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Skip Windows 8 and chalk it up as the 21st century version of Vista. In the meantime, enterprises and IT Pros should get the jump on the Windows 10 ecosystem by setting up testing platforms.