Microsoft is making available today to testers its final public technical previews of Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016. Technical Preview 5 (TP5) of both products are available for download on April 27.

Both of these previews are considered "feature-complete" at this point, said Jeremy Winter, Partner Director Program Management for System Center & Services.

"The current thinking is these are our last technical previews" before RTM, or release to manufacturing, Winter said.

Microsoft officials indicated previously that Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 would be generally available in the third calendar quarter of 2016. It sounds like that's still the plan, with Winter saying "Fall" was still the general-availability target.

Microsoft officials said TP5 of Windows Server 2016 includes very little in terms of brand-new features beyond what was in the Windows Server 2016 TP4 build -- the first one to include Hyper-V containers -- in November 2015. It does include improvements to the core security features already there, such as shielded virtual machines; software-defined compute, storage and network virtualization; Windows Server and Hyper-V containers; and Nano Server deployment mode.

But the new System Center 2016 TP5 does include a number of new features beyond what was in TP4, according to Microsoft...

Read more: Microsoft delivers final public test builds of Windows Server 2016, System Center 2016 | ZDNet


See also: What's New in Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5

Posted By: Brink
27 Apr 2016