Microsoft has just released the public downloads for Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3, not even a month after the April CTP!
Even more exciting, it’s a public download! Now anyone who wants to test out Longhorn can do so, with LHS Beta 3. It’s basically a beta-quality version of the April CTP, not too many more features; but supposedly faster (due to compilation optimizations), and more reliable. But we haven’t tested it yet, so don’t take this to the bank for fear of an overdraft.
In our opinion, Windows Longhorn Server and Windows Vista are entire opposites. If you’ve been holding out on the LHS-love because of lack-luster Vista performance, bugs, and instability: don’t worry, LHS isn’t like that – even now in the Beta stage.
Iain McDonald from the Microsoft LHS Team revealed the news earlier this morning. Below are the direct download links reproduced for your convenience:
Windows Longhorn Server Standard Edition
English – German – Japanese
Windows Longhorn Server Enterprise Edition
English – German – Japanese
Windows Longhorn Server Datacenter Edition
English – German – Japanese
Windows Longhorn Server Web Edition
English – German – Japanese
Windows Longhorn Server Itanic Edition (Itanium)
English – German – Japanese
Update (18:12 UTC): Fixed broken link for English Enterprise Edition Update (18:59 UTC): We’ve installed the build. It has improvements to IIS 7 (FastCGI now ships by default, couple of new minor features), and, once activated, expires in April 2008.