If you are currently running Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (Service Pack 1) Beta-2, take a look at your web administration page's event status area. You have less than 50 days before that version expires. Fortunately, Microsoft provided a...

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Release Candidate

...earlier this week which provides another 150 days of reprieve. We can only hope that the production version is released way before this version expires.

SP1 provides a number of useful new features. The most important (for me) is the support for hardware virtualization assist in the AMD-V and Intel VT enabled processors. This provides a noticeable oomph for virtual machines.

I ran into two somewhat related problems while upgrading two servers from the Beta-2 release to RC. The first server was an old Pentium III test box (32-bit version). After upgrading Virtual Server lost didn't see the hardware network interface. I had to go into Windows Server's network configuration to manually re-enable (check box) the virtual network interface.

The second problem occured on a newer server running Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition 64-bit. Windows server itself lost all network connectivity after upgrading to Virtual Server RC. Restarting network services from Services did not restore connectivity. I was forced to reboot the host server to regain network connectivity.