Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 BETA2 is now available for download!

What’s new in R2 SP1 Beta 2 ?

AMD Virtualization Technology (AVT) compatibility:
Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 includes support for AMD® Virtualization Technology. By default, hardware assisted virtualization is enabled if present. Support for AMD® Virtualization Technology can also be specifically enabled or disabled on a per virtual machine basis by toggling the "Enable hardware-assisted virtualization if available" option in the general properties configuration page.

Volume Shadow Service Support:
Volume Shadow Service provides customers with improved support for backup and disaster recovery. Instead of scheduling downtime for backing up each virtual machine individually, customers will now be able to take snapshot backups of physical machines that will in turn take snapshots of all the virtual machines on that physical host.

Offline VHD Mounting:
Offline VHD mounting now enables customers to view and manipulate the files in a VHD from the host OS. This enables administrators to easily deploy scripts and perform virus scans across VHDs without having to start each virtual machine.

Active Directory integration and management features:
Virtual Server service now publishes its binding information in Active Directory as a Service Connection Point (SCP) object. System administrators can use this information to easily locate all instances of the Virtual Server service within an Active Directory forest.

More can be found at https://connect.microsoft.com/ and you have to be member of Beta program.