Microsoft releases new Windows Server 2019 Insider and SDK preview builds

Windows Server Insiders and developers are moving on up to build 17677 with Microsoft's latest preview releases.

Following the launch of Windows Insider build 17677 on the Fast ring last week, Microsoft is rolling out a new Windows Server Insider preview build and a matching SDK as well.

The latest Windows Server 2019 preview release ticks the build number up to 17677 and includes a few notable improvements. Here's a look at what's new:

Performance history for Storage Spaces Direct

In this build, the performance history feature of Storage Spaces Direct gets even better:

  • The Get-ClusterPerf cmdlet now includes self-diagnosis logic: if the cmdlet finds nothing to report, it now looks for common issues that would prevent performance history from working properly (for example, if its storage is missing) so that the cmdlet can provide clear error text.
  • New cmdlets, Start-ClusterPerformanceHistory and Stop-ClusterPerformanceHistory, that are provided in this build make it easy to remediate such issues by cleaning up and/or re-provisioning performance history.
  • New series, provided in this build, record how much Storage Spaces Direct data needs to repair/resync per server.

Container Improvements

In our continued effort to improve Windows Server Core and reduce its image size, we made the following changes: – we converted non-critical font components into optional components (OC) in Windows Server Core editions, and then removed these OCs from Windows Server Core container images. This change won't affect the user experience of Windows Server Core, except that users now have the ability to enable or disable non-critical font components, like they can do for any other OC. For Server Core containers, only the default font, Arial, is supported; no other fonts are supported, and no others can be installed.

Windows Server 2019 preview build 17677 is available for download from Microsoft now.

Additionally, developers can now catch up with Windows 10 SDK preview build 17677. As with previous preview SDKs, 17677 can be installed alongside previous versions and works with Visual Studio 2017. If you're a developer, you can find a full list of known issues and API changes at Microsoft. If you want to dive right in, the latest preview SDK is available for download now.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl