Richard Siddaway's Blog

Windows Server 2019 GA has happened.

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2018/10/02/windows-server-2019-now-generally-available/

You can download evaluation edition or if you have a MSDN subscription get your hands on the full install media.

Time to rebuild my lab – AFTER PowerShell day next week.  I’ll stick with what I’ve got until the demos are done.

Rule 1 of presentations – DON’T change the demo

The availability of Windows server 2019 preview build 17962 has been announced.

Also available is:

A preview of Hyper-V Server 2019

System Insights - a new feature bringing local predictive analytical capabilities to Windows Server. Systems Insights is managed through Windows Admin Center or PowerShell

Server Core App Compatibility on Demand – includes ability to install system components that need some of the GUI capabilities not present on server core including MMC, perfmon, sysinternals tools and PowerShell ISE

A new preview of Windows Admin Center (WAC was formerly known as project Honolulu)

I’m not a big fan of WAC – its perpetuating the GUI based focus of admin tools. One good thing in this preview is that the underlying PowerShell scripts are know visible. This may just make it useful as a learning tool in the same way that the AD Adninistrative center is a way to learn how to manage AD with PowerShell

A Windows Server 2019 preview is available - https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2018/03/20/introducing-windows-server-2019-now-available-in-preview/

The build number is 17623 and its also the preview of the next Semi-Annual Channel release.

GA is set for H2 2018

Server 2019 is a Long term Servicing Channel release meaning it’ll be available in GUI (desktop) and Server Core versions and a full life cycle (10 years is current standard) as opposed to the Semi-Annual Channel releases which are Server Core only and have a 18 month lifetime.

One interesting feature is that this release brings the ability to do an in place OS upgrade from Server 2016 and Server 2012 R2. It doesn’t explicitly say so but I’m assuming from the wording you can’t upgrade Semi-Annual Channel machine

Now for  the bad news. Windows PowerShell is still v5.1

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      5.1.17623.1002
PSEdition                      Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion                   10.0.17623.1002
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion              3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1

Hopefully there are some bug fixes even if there’s no new functionality.