Windows Home Server

Posted By: Rory | Jan 8th, 2007 @ 4:17 PM | 221,295 Views | 65 Comments
Microsoft is a big company. Everybody knows this, but it really hits home when your job is to go around and interview people from its many divisions.

Before shooting this video, I didn't even know there was a Windows Home Server coming out.

But there is.

And if you want to know what it is, then check out this video.

(As a side note, my favorite interviews are the ones in which I don't know much at all about the team or product that is the subject of the video. I'm still new to C9, and I'm learning that one of the perks is that the job exposes you to so many interesting people and projects. I am a happy little man indeed.)

When you're done here, head over to 10 to see their coverage of the same product, but from a different angle.
Media Downloads:
Rating:
2
0
#Jan 8th, 2007 @ 4:49 PM
die-Sel
die-Sel
this is going to be one handy piece of software, i just hope we can deloy our own applications
#Jan 8th, 2007 @ 11:33 PM
TimP
TimP
Cool video. The ability to connect directly to the machine with Remote Desktop is a great feature and definitely makes it more appealing. I was glad to hear the operating system will be available separately for the DIYers.

Since it seems like these machines won't have CD-ROM drives, what happens if the operating system needs to be reinstalled? Will the user have a disc they can restore from with a USB CD-ROM drive or is there a partition on the hard drive to recover from? Since it looks like these machines don't have video cards either, the process would have to be entirely automated.
#Jan 9th, 2007 @ 12:14 AM
DCMonkey
DCMonkey
Monkey see, monkey do, monkey will destroy you!
die-Sel wrote:
this is going to be one handy piece of software, i just hope we can deloy our own applications


Watch the video.
#Jan 9th, 2007 @ 2:27 AM
Massif
Massif
aim stupidly high, expect to fail often.
I want to know two important things:

If I have two users with the same username on two seperate PCs, does the system recognise (or can it be made to recognise) that it's the same user and keep all their documents / e-mails in sync?

If my PC is turned off, does it still wake up, backup and then go to sleep?
#Jan 9th, 2007 @ 2:49 AM
JohnF
JohnF
No stout about it!
First censored video on Channel 9?
#Jan 9th, 2007 @ 3:08 AM
Filip
Filip

This is an amazing piece of software. It really turns the tables on GDrive or Live Drive. Why would I want to store my documents at Microsoft or Google, when I can have the privacy of storing them on my own server, and yet have the zero-maintenance anyway. I love the Desktop Search right on the storage server (as opposed to on every PC in the house), the super-quick easy backup and the ability to restore a complete computer on a blank disk in just 1 hour (that is going to save me time! I'll sell one to my parents too Smiley), the ability to store documents centrally with infinite storage (no more manually mounting disks anymore), with resiliance to a crashing harddisk (can't do that with an ordinary mount). The central management of the security of all home PCs, without the hassle of complex policies and settings. I'm sold. And throwing in the remote access to applications over the Internet is the ultimate selling point for Vista on my other PCs, in my case.

I have just two requests for Charlie Kindel:

1. You mentioned that Windows Media Center initially was too closed for geeks (and ISVs) to extend. Could your team please please provide an API that allows an external service to plug a page and top tab in the Home Server Console? I'm thinking of third parties providing an easy interface to do home automation, for instance.

2. On the client PC with Home Server Connector, could you please provide a system tray icon which allows to take a backup immediately (like I know is already possible from the Homer Server itself for that PC).
Or alternatively the ability to create a backup every time the computer shuts down (with max of once a day).
This is just so that computer don't consume energy while waiting to be backed up over night. I'm sure my parents will NOT keep their PC on just to back it up.


PS. Can this Home Server also do ASP.NET web serving?

#Jan 9th, 2007 @ 7:23 AM
dtsob75
dtsob75

This IS very cool.

I wonder if there will be an email server for this?  That would seem to be a logical extension of this...

#Jan 9th, 2007 @ 7:54 AM
mycroft
mycroft
This is really exciting, even though there are similar NASs out there none seem as smooth or powerful as this. I wonder if I'll be able to run AD on this and have myself a little domain.

I didn't understand how the shared folders worked exactly, do they aggregrate everything contained within each individual users special folders like Video and Pictures into a virtual folder? How about privacy, are permissions set on the computer retained? Can you view each disk backup separately and see all the files? Does the search link into Vista search? I thought network search was cut from the release.

This really seems like a good time to reintroduce the castle concept that was cut from Vista, or something domain like for central management in a simple way. Maybe V.2
Microsoft Communities