Windows Vista Blade PC Edition

[yourepicfailure]

There appears to be a little-known SKU of Windows Vista. This SKU is known as the "Blade PC Edition." It appears to be a variation of the Business SKU with a few unknown features. But that's where information ends. There is very little documentation about this variant, and even better: distributed only through OEM. Mostly as OEM installs on new blade workstation orders.

I'm looking to see if anyone out there has any experience or knownledge pertaining to this SKU.

[windowsio]

There appears to be a little-known SKU of Windows Vista. This SKU is known as the "Blade PC Edition." It appears to be a variation of the Business SKU with a few unknown features. But that's where information ends. There is very little documentation about this variant, and even better: distributed only through OEM. Mostly as OEM installs on new blade workstation orders.

I'm looking to see if anyone out there has any experience or knownledge pertaining to this SKU.

found this https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_c ... 207121.PDF

[WindowsNeptune]

There appears to be a little-known SKU of Windows Vista. This SKU is known as the "Blade PC Edition." It appears to be a variation of the Business SKU with a few unknown features. But that's where information ends. There is very little documentation about this variant, and even better: distributed only through OEM. Mostly as OEM installs on new blade workstation orders.

I'm looking to see if anyone out there has any experience or knownledge pertaining to this SKU.

Wow, I've never heard about this SKU before.

Well, I searched on Web and found some Blade Servers supports "Windows Vista Business Blade PC Edition". For example, IBM BladeCenter® HC10, HP ProLiant xw2x220c Blade Workstation, etc.

I guess that this SKU my not a "stand-alone" SKU, but some kind of License, for example: Windows 2000 Professional Embedded, Windows 7 Pro Embedded. For the HP ProLiant xw2x220c Blade Workstation, it says it supports "Windows Vista Business Blade PC Edition with 1 RDP License".

[yourepicfailure]

It is to my knowledge the HP XW460c workstation blade of 2007-08?, the grandfather of my current WS460c g8, may have also come equipped with this OS as a later option. XP SP2 Professional Blade PC Edition is explicitly listed in the specs however HP also states it may come with Vista, this information speckled throughout their website. The next 460 series workstation was the G6 of 2009-10? and no documentation points to any Windows Blade Edition. Likely this variant was ended within the HP two year release gap between the systems. Possibly around when Win7 was RTM'ed.

But like those other Windows variants, all I can find is little to nothing. Most of what I find show it is essentially Business with a different branding slapped on, with some components that assist with management and interconnection of numerous blades within an enclosure. Akin to cluster install variations within the server OS.

>windowsio

That big blue documentation was the largest source of info for me. It points to a slightly tweaked Business SKU, while the few news outlets that reported on this variation show it to be nothing more than a rebranded Business. I would much rather point my research "trust" to a sales company who wants to over-highlight the software to sell rather than a news "reporter" who has never touched let a lone seen a blade in person.

If anything I would love to see the actual branding, if Microsoft created custom branding for it.

[koba]

If anything I would love to see the actual branding, if Microsoft created custom branding for it.

I'd assume Microsoft didn't create any branding for it, since it seems like this might be something IBM worked on for their own Blade PCs? It's definitely possible that they did, though.

If anything, it'd be cool if we actually got our hands on more info on this thing. I'm sure there's branding out there that IBM or some other company made, but Microsoft themselves making it, I kinda doubt.

That being said, since there isn't a lot of info on this, is it possible it never actually got officially released, or not a lot of copies actually were? I would have thought that we'd have more info on it if it was more widely available on IBM work PCs at the time.

[yourepicfailure]

It is not IBM exclusive. HP, one of the other pioneers of Blade PCs, also distributed it with their machines.

It is likely only a short-lived OEM channel distro.