So why does this matter to you, a user of the Windows Vista client?  Well, if you use Windows Vista in a corporate environment, chances are your IT staff also employs Windows Server as well.  The new LHS has been designed to work hand-in-hand with Windows Vista, allowing new generations of applications and solutions to seamlessly integrate into existing server environments.

LHS shifts more of the processing to the client side of the equation, thus enhancing responsiveness throughout the system and allowing individual users (clients) greater span of control.  For example, LHS allows clients to render print jobs locally before sending them to print servers in order to reduce the load on the server and thereby increase its availability.  Also, server resources are cached locally on the client so that they are available even if the server is not, with those cached copies automatically updating when the client and server are reconnected.  Native IPv6 is also supported across all client and server services so as to create a more scalable and reliable network, with the re-written TCP/IP stack making network communication faster and more efficient.

Here're a few examples of what the LHS UI looks like:

The LHS Team is very excited about this release and created a short video starring Server Program Management Director Iain McDonald and members of the dev team to celebrate.