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It just so happens that today I successfully 'Downgraded' Vista Home Basic that came pre-installed on an HP Pavilion pv9000 to Windows XP Media Center 2005.

Here was the scenario:
Vista kept crashing constantly when connected to a WPA protected wifi, but worked ok with WEP or no security.
No driver support for the existing (perfectly working) HP Photosmart 1215
No driver support for the existing (also perfectly working) HP Scanjet 5470c

I called 1-800-Microso and after getting lost in their phone menu I hit 0 and was connected to someone with a strange accent. I proceeded to tell the rep my intention of exchanging the Vista product key for MCE and that Vista absolutely doesn't work in the environment I need it to.
I wish I would have recorded the 35 minute conversation. It was like pulling teeth and many of his responses were laughable. But my persistence, and having the correct answers to his scripted questions to force his script into a loop many times got me what I wanted. For example, I was told that it was impossible to remove Vista from the laptop. I explained I knew what hard drives were and how to delete partitions. I was then told that my media could not successfully install on this laptop because the product key has already been used. I explained that is the reason for my call (this generated many loops). He seemed annoyed and asked me for the tiny numbers on inner ring of the CD, then to put in the disc to prove that it won't install (perhaps thinking that I wouldn't) I said it's booting the XP setup now. Should I install it? He says go ahead. He needed me to repeat every action and step during this process, I had to tell him what % the coping process was on constantly. But after wiping out my partition and getting the installation to the product information screen he read me off a new XP MCE 2005 key.

My suggestion to anyone that wants to try this, is keep your cool. Know that they are following a script and that you can easily put them in to loop and actually make them think. Stay within the bounds of the script until you achieve your result. You can get annoyed, but don't get angry.

Also, this particular laptop has the Conexant HD audio in which no XP driver is offered by HP (or Toshiba) I did find this post to a forum about a similar problem with a Toshiba very helpful.

It is interesting to report that XP MCE runs so much faster and reliably that Vista on this PC.

Oh and they max out at 32GB of ram whereas you can get a DL585g2 which can economically go to 64GB

Gosh, I sure wish HP would put an Intel processor in the DL580g4. That way there'd be a platform that would max out at 64GB of ram. Oh, wait...

I would be interested in knowing your assumptions, test streams and the hardware configuration. Several carefully executed benchmarks of real world scenarios that I have seen do not tally with what you are claiming. For instance, see Performance Evaluation of Virtualization Technologies for Server Consolidation and Diagnosing Performance Overheads in the Xen Virtual Machine Environment

Please explain by what you mean as a "joke"?

If you follow the forum link you'll see two other links.
One to HP's internal support site , another to IBM's internal support site and another to DELL's internal support site, all explaining about the microcode fixes and offering BIOS updates. And are dated in April and May.

Isn't it more plausible that the file names have the word "genuine" in them because like many patches, they're only available to activated windows boxes, and that it's just some random bug in the microcode being fixed?

The bug in question is the bug in the TLB that was discovered back in April. Here's HP's page on it. I think that the only reason it's news today is because Microsoft has either just released or re-released a patch to fix the issue on Windows boxes.

Blah I say. Blah. This is old news. I first read about it over a month ago when Dell shipped a "critical update" for some of their laptops for this issue. Check out this HP advisory from a couple weeks ago:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/D ocument.jsp?objectID=c01038053

Dell released an update for PE2950 servers around the same time.

So again I say, Blah.

*YAWN*

Two months ago, Intel introduced microcode updates for all systems with an Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo processor. According to an HP Tech Support Document:

While the implications of the issue are difficult to quantify, any of the following symptoms can occur:

* The system may stop responding to keyboard or mouse input.
* A system operating in a Microsoft Windows environment may generate a blue screen.
* A system operating in a Linux environment may generate a kernel panic.

This was the first I had heard of this; probably a good time to check for BIOS or microcode updates."

The HP link also indicates the nature of the problem, which should not be OS specific:

This Intel microcode update addresses an improper Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) invalidation that may result in unpredictable system behavior such as system hangs or incorrect data.

There was a microcode update released as part of system BIOSes a couple months back; this may be a workaround for people who cannot or will not update their system BIOS.

The most complete information I could find was posted as part of HP's BIOS update: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/D ocument.jsp?objectID=c01020735&dimid=908755463&dic id=alr_apr07&jumpid=em_alerts/us/apr07/all/xbu/ema ilsubid/mrm/mcc/loc/rbu_category/alerts

Looks like the primary problem is system stability, though I suspect imaginative people could probably find a security vulnerability with the TLB.

HP blade servers are 6U and fit up to 16 HP ProLiant BL30 or BL35p server blades

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/1233 0_div/12330_div.html

You can get at least dual-core dual-processor BL35p units

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bl35p+dual-proces sor+dual-core

Not sure you can get quad-core yet, but I can't imagine that'll be long when quad-core processors are getting more commonplace.

I think you can't quite hit these numbers - you have to put some extra support hardware in each rack. But it's not far off.

I'm writing this on my computer that has been running 64 bit Vista Ultimate since November. My computer is a Compaq SR1710NX. It runs beautifully and World of Warcraft runs beautifully on it. I fail to see the "7000 punds of brick".

I also have a SR1610NX that's running 32 bit Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. I always have at least 3 virtual machines running, all running Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. One is a domain controller running Active Directory, one is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and the other is running Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Depending on what I'm working on at the time I will also have up to 4 other virtual machines running with Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Ubuntu. Runs beautifully.

I'm writing this on my computer that has been running 64 bit Vista Ultimate since November. My computer is a Compaq SR1710NX. It runs beautifully and World of Warcraft runs beautifully on it. I fail to see the "7000 punds of brick".

I also have a SR1610NX that's running 32 bit Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. I always have at least 3 virtual machines running, all running Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. One is a domain controller running Active Directory, one is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and the other is running Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Depending on what I'm working on at the time I will also have up to 4 other virtual machines running with Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Ubuntu. Runs beautifully.

1. Don't mention God. You'll start another flamewar and we'll have to hear about FSM vs Kthulu all over again for no good reason because TFA isn't about that. That nonsense is what fark comments are for.
2. Using M$ for Microsoft is pedantic. Don't do it. Lots of people hate the Beast but like money. Like the devil in old folk tales, don't name them but talk about them less directly. You see how I'm referring to them as if they were the culture assimilating soul destroying Borg without actually saying it? That lets other people know they want to be in on the joke. It's a subtlety thing. I like to call it "peer reference pressure."
3. One exclamation helps! Two don't?
4. Have a signature that tersely expresses your wry wit.
5. Location, location, location. Being frist psot seldom hurts.
6. When following up with a post like this one, be sure to mention that Mandriva is well supported by major vendors like HP (8 different models each of laptops and desktop/workstations). That way you won't be too far off topic.
7. If you use links, try to work in one that's funny and on point at the same time.
8. All ordered lists must end with ...profit!

Here's an example of this done goodlier: Thank goodness

What about to use HP and Debian: http://www.hp.com/go/debian

Out of those you've listed, only Penguin Computer actually sells servers with Linux

Huh? Are you looking at a different HP website than everyone else? We don't even have any HP servers here and even I know you can't get a Proliant running Linux. Here's the first one I came to, and that was just 30 seconds work clicking on the first options I saw. SLES or RHEL, your choice.

Does windows run on the santarosa chipset? The chipset on the older Macbook Pros is supported on windows, but I am not sure about this new Santarosa chipset.

If Windows doesn't run on Santa Rosa cpus then why has PC OEMs like HP released computers using them? Apple is just the lastest to use them in laptops.

The Conservative Garbage Collector http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/ will make most memory issues go away. It is robust and is used in GCC for example.

Use valgrind. It's for Linux only, but what it does is invaluable for most of the tasks. I don't know of any other tool of such help.

And if the App is windows-only, you can even use wine with valgrind.

Note this is not 'memory management tool', but one to help you find and clean up the memory leaks. There is no way to do proper garbage collection using the STL's allocators, though there is a 'gc' library http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/ which tends to do the job. Haven't used it, though projects like Mono http://www.mono-project.org/ use it extensively.

Boehm's GC is also used in gcj (GNU Compiler for Java).

They might be useful for small apps but if you have a massive app they are almost more trouble than they are worth.

It's hard to say what you can do except foster safe coding practice and highlight the common pitfalls such as memory leaks, buffer overflows etc. Many compilers can help detect heap / memory overruns because the debug libs put guard bytes on the stack & heap that trigger exceptions when something bad happens. There are also 3rd party libs such as Boehm which help with memory leeak / garbage collection issues and dump stats. I'd say using STL & Boost is also a very good way of minimizing errors too simply because doing so avoids having to write your own implementations of arrays, strings etc. which are bound to be less stable.

Use valgrind. It's for Linux only, but what it does is invaluable for most of the tasks. I don't know of any other tool of such help.

Note this is not 'memory management tool', but one to help you find and clean up the memory leaks. There is no way to do proper garbage collection using the STL's allocators, though there is a 'gc' library http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/ which tends to do the job. Haven't used it, though projects like Mono http://www.mono-project.org/ use it extensively.

If this was anyone but twitter posting, I'd be asking if he had too much to drink.

Surface [Video] When this Vista tech hits the home market, it is going to be big. Surface makes interaction with the PC a social experience. more open and more casual than the Wii controller.

In the near term, there is Windows Home Server. HP MediaSmart Server Brand name product. No assembly required...

And so we return to reality. Heathkit died in the 'eighties. The home PC market is not a craft market. No one wants to deal with the assembly and configuration issues of systems this complex.

There are already designed-for-Vista systems on the market that upstage the generic XP box. HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC Review. There will be more to come. Products like ATI's CableCARD HDTV Digital Cable Tuner will eventually have an impact. A system that is realistically spec'd for Vista will be realistically spec'd for HD - whether the source is camcorder video, cable, broadcast, ot the net.

_____

IP laws are not going into the trash so long as audiences expect to see $100 million dollar productions on their 52 inch screen. In the thirties, forties, and fiftues, almost everything in American radio and television was produced by advertising agencies and down to the last detail designed to meet the needs of their mass-market sponsors.

You might want to think about that before you deny creative talents a direct and sustaining source of income.

I can just imagine the PHB at Dilbert's cube announcing that he's come up with plans for a space elevator.

From their Wiki page:

Our goal is a significant return on investment - whether or not - the Space Elevator is ultimately successful. We do this by concentrating on 2 things: generating profits through spin-off technologies, and learning what we need to learn, in order to achieve our long-term goals.

The Four Pillars dictate how the rest of the world interacts with us; while the Five-C's are examples of how we interact with the world. Collectively these are referred to as The Nine and are used when considering the action matrix for building our elevator to space."

Four Pillars? Five Cs? The Nine?

Who are these kids, and how did they get access to enough money in the first place that now some government entity finds them worth investigating?

Looking through page after page of their gallery section, I ask myself what photograph after photograph of empty rooms and open spaces across a very large piece of real estate says about how they're handling money. Take a look through yourself. (Try not to stumble over the poor grammar and poorly written comments.)

Honestly ... if you had a fledgling company focusing on an extremely fledging idea, would you put your money into renting or buying buildings like that? Or would you perhaps start of with something smaller, like Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard?

But whatever ... I just wish *I* had an action matrix!

... the Jornada 820 because...?? http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum /personalsystems/0038/index.html

The problems you point out may be real, but most of your suggestions aren't particularly practical.

In general, throwing out an existing code base is rarely a good idea. Practically speaking there's rarely a code base so bad that no part of it can be salvaged. Even when things are rewritten, it's almost always the overall structure that's just refactored by a lot of copy pasting.

Also, I'm an SML fan, but there are reasons that no one outside of academia uses SML.
1. Very few people are familiar with it. There is *no one* who has used it for a large project in the real world. I'm not saying it's untested, I'm just saying that the expertise isn't available for a given project like it is with c++ or java.
2. It doesn't support object orientation and the associated runtime polymorphism (i.e. no virtual functions). Runtime polymorphism is pretty darn handy, and it just doesn't exist in SML.
3. There are not the large extant code bases that exist in C++ and java.

Ocaml solves a few of these problems with ML, but not all of them.

As far as garbage collection goes, that would make the existing runtime *more* memory hungry, not *less*. That said, it's handy to have one, and many people *do* use garbage collectors *in c++* http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/

I'd be curious to see someone write a good java browser... but I'm not sure I'd use it unless the UI was at least as snappy as firefox.

HP actually works more closely with Xen than OpenVZ. For that matter, HP guys have contributed quite a bit of code to Xen (XenoProf, Perfmon come to mind). This study is done by people from U.Michigan and people at HP labs, a research division of HP.

Pradeep

you can install it yourself if you want, that's why its a PERSONAL computer

In what way is this different to what was well reported in 2003?
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jack_Brassil/nytime s.pdf

Slashdot - on the ball, as ever.

> However, the inkjets (which, by the way, are very far from perfect) are quite uncorrelated from the matter at hand.

Heh. Actually they're very relevant to the matter at hand. I've tried to explain why briefly below.

> It isn't as if they just sat around a few decades and researched

Except that *is* what happened. (link, link) IBM did a lot of the early work in the early 1960s but never came up with something that'd appeal to mid- and small-business and consumers. Siemens made an early breakthrough here, and a thermal inkjet prototype was developed by HP in (IIRC) 1979. It was too primitive to bring to market, so HP continued to polish it until they introduced their first commercial inkjet in (again, IIRC) 1984. This wasn't a perfect printer, in fact according to Canon (which actually had more patents than HP on inkjet tech at this time) their engineers would "lose face" (warning: .doc) if they shipped such a lousy printer. The first inkjets didn't sell very well but HP continued to invest in them until they had 300 dpi resolution in about 1988, at which point they first tasted commercial success.

> No, it came in iterations, every few months or years a new model.

Iterative improvements came only around 1989-90, when sales started booming. Until then, imagine yourself an HP R&D manager and wonder if you would have greenlighted research that took almost a decade to get significant sales (on top of almost 15 years of prior research).

I've often said that /.-ers have a very warped view of innovation, coming no doubt from a world where all you need to build something new is a freely-available library here and some sample code there, and hey presto! new app! Innovation outside software (in hardware, in pharmaceuticals) is a good deal more complicated than that.

We should probably ask some VMS users about that. They had a versioned filesystem 20 years ago.

It's actually closer to 30 years ago. I can't believe VMS is celebrating it's thirtieth birthday this year.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/25th/index.html

Having multiple versions of a file is *extremely* handy. That feature saved me bacon many-a-time. For those of you who have never been fortunate enough to login to a VMS system, the file versioning looks like this to the user: scott_file.txt;5 scott_file.txt;4 scott_file.txt;3 scott_file.txt;2 and so on The file version incremented each time you modified the file. You could set the number of file versions that the OS would keep for you. I don't remember the maximum number of versions of a file that you could keep but I remember seeing version numbers that were five digits wide. The version number wrapped after a while. Thanks, -Scott

Related work, but without the standardized templates that are the real value in your proposal:
Retrofitting sandboxes into Windows

The T60 widescreen is about half a pound heavier and half an inch thicker than a MBP; you get the regular ThinkPad goodies, but lose DVI, FW800, a slightly better graphics card, and OS X. The regular T60, being a 14" non-widescreen laptop with (usually) integrated graphics, really isn't the same type of product.

The X60 is very small and light, but doesn't have an optical drive and suffers a considerable power deficit compared to even a MacBook, let alone an MBP. (1024x768 screen is unusable these days, too.)

Of course, both are vastly, vastly better designed and made than more typical MBP competition.

Writing this as AC, because many here will most likely don't like this comment, but...

Linux has the problem that it's too fragmented. There are 20 million distro's out there, and not one that's as easy to use and as workable on various hardware as Windows.
People should stop trying to make their ultimate distro number 20million1 and just make a few distro's that are adaptable, and that actually work.
The linux nerds are too much like "ooohw, that's easy, just pop up bash, and run #tar zxvf program_name.tar.gz #configure #make #make install #make clean

Well, that's not really easy for the average user that's used to double-clicking a .msi file is it? Same with things like editing xorg.conf to get a 10button mouse to work, which inevitably leads to a few failed boots because of some tiny errors, or editing the IP-tables.
It's just not user-friendly.

Same with hardware support. Linux users should pressure companies more to provide Linux drivers, or like that initiative started a while ago, where spare-time programmers offer their services to create Linux-drivers under non-disclosure agreements. I've got an HP Color LaserJet 1600. Doesn't properly work in Linux. I've got a Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman. I haven't been able to get that to properly work either.
Or how about phone synchronising software?

I love linux, I really do, but to be frank, useability, hardware support, etc, sucks big time. Even if it's there, it's impossible to implement for johnny average.
Linux users and programmers should get their acts together, and stop making the millions of fragmented distro's, and make a few that actually and properly work. Where hardware works just as easy as it does on Windows, where you can tell the firewall to show a pop-up if a program wants internet access instead of silently blocking it.

I know that if we all combine our efforts we can make an operating system that's both easy to use for john average, aswell as powerfull enough for the 1337, and just works on all hardware be it a Core2Duo, AMD64 or PPC, but we gotta unite because currenty we still ain't achieving much, and are always a bit behind on stuff that even windows just supports.

my 2 cents..

http://www.shopping.hp.com/notebooks?jumpid=re_R32 9_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks

all the notebooks are the same as the ones you would find in store, only customizable.

I'm talking about this:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF04a/3219 57-321957-64295-321838-89315.html

Only 3 of the 7 HP models listed have the "Configure PC" option.
You may have a point with regards to the other configurable models (that weren't of interest), but that obviously didn't help me much.

And I didn't find the Dell site confusing. The entire purchase took about 10 minutes, with no phone calls involved.

"If you have any ideas or suggestions on how Hewlett-Packard can serve you better" HP UK CEO Mark Hurd encourages you to contact him.

I'm pretty sure he was talking about the ink cartridges, not the printer.

HP releases ink cartridge page yield using ISO standard pages at http://www.hp.com/pageyield

Kodak here I come. I'm tired of large corparations taking advantage of the flock because we ACT like sheep. Put HP printers out of business until they get the message. I believe I read (maybe here) that HP printer cartriges had a chip on them that would report to the computer that they were out of ink, when in fact they were not, to get you to buy another over priced cartrige. Hurt them where it counts, or they will never change. I've been buying canon printers, and canon ink (rather than slightly cheaper 3rd party ink) to try to reward them for not gouging me on the ink. I'll look into kodak next time I need a printer. Now if they have native linux drivers, Kodak would be a done deal. They won't change until we hurt them where it counts. Next time you buy a none HP printer, email them to tell them why you won't buy their stuff anymore. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/feedbac k.do;jsessionid=GxCTB6m1p2fJcoG63U7U0P1YV8VQVD3QNP 177At6udUrxCMjeG6K!711870732

There is a cheaper desktop model that most users could easily use. A workstation like that isn't needed for someone who only uses office, outlook, sometimes a browser. Which is the typical usage by the average Joe/Jane (Jone? Jae? Jae sounds more hip.) in the work place. These are all non-corporate prices though. Not really worth mentioning them when talking about larger businesses. http://www.hp.com/sbso/buyguides/pg_desktops.html? jumpid=re_R2515_product/solutions/computing/deskto p_buy_guide

Er, did you mean that the Dell product was a little bit more? Or is one of those numbers a typo?

According to the HP site:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/1245 4-12454-64287-321860-3328898-3232028.html

the bottom-configuration DC7700 is $959 on sale, but that's not the bulk-purchase price.

HP has the XW8400 series workstations, you can configure one with dual quad core chips and 32GB of FB memory.

here's the link to the specs
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/1252 2_na/12522_na.HTML

Not sure why this is news?

When the New York Times talks about a revival of interest in PC gaming, it is talking about Windows and Vista. Not the Mac. Not Linux.

PC Games, Once Down, Show Signs of Rebound

DX 10. Games for Windows marketing. Games for Windows--Live. The mid-line DX 10 card will be out this spring.

By fall, the designed-for-Vista PC will be everywhere.

It may look very different from the generic XP box. HP TouchSmart PC It may be designed to compliment products like HP MediaSmart Server But it will be dominate the consumer market - and it will gain strength in other markets. Apple has conceded as much. You do not shift focus to the murderously competitive cell phone market if you truly believe that the Mac and OSX has an opportunity to gain significant ground in the PC market.

With this new merger, however, it's become nigh-impossible to find a decent, small laptop which has an amd processor and an nvidia graphics chipset.

Dell has had considerable success in HDTV. HP has its MediaSmart Server. If you are in the consumer market, you are care about both movies and data.

technically, HP has been in the pay per print (we call them clicks) business for years. now they're just moving it down to slight lower end hardware that isn't running 18 hours a day.

I don't recall NT ever being pitched as a consumer OS --- as for WHS: Windows Home Server Beta 2 Screenshot Gallery Part 2: Client Install & Configuration

If you don't know what RAID is, why would you bother specing a home-pc with hot swappable drives?
"To add storage just slip in another drive and you are good to go."
Yeah, assuming you got a server chassis with hot swappable drives. Which, by definition, the end-user this is targeted at doesn't.

Wrong again. The user doesn't have to spec anything.

Internal/External. ATA/SATA. USB/Firewire. None of this matters to WHS. Everything available is added to the general store.

HP MediaSmart Server Up to 6TB of storage.

Drives are set into cartridges. There's no need for the user to crack open the case. No need need for him to know or care about the system internals. Should hit the market around September.

"Automated backups for every system on the net. Recover older versions of files. Single instance storage"
Yeah, that's a good pitch, too. So far? Vapor-ware!

Not Vapor-ware. A Beta-2. Or else why play for geek-points by leaking the program to the web?

"Remote access and administration. Remote control over the web --- again, intended for users who have no experience in any of this."
Oh, there's a security hole just waiting for a portscan to come along!

"Microsoft is providing WHS users with a free Internet address via Windows Live. This address will give you a remote interface into your entire home network, not just WHS. You will be able to access any shared folders remotely, or even control individual PCs remotely.

This technology, which is based on remote access functionality in Windows Small Business Server, will let consumers do things like upload photos from a kiosk from a remote part of the world, download files they need while on the road, or enjoy recorded TV shows while they're on vacation. Microsoft will also allow you to pick a vanity Internet address through Windows Live Domains if you'd like something more custom.

Incidentally, the remote access functionality is free in that you won't be paying any annual or monthly fees, it's just a part of the benefit of using WHS." Windows Home Server Preview, Windows Home Server Points Way to Next SBS

This is aimed at Fanbois who just don't have the brains to make the leap to Ubuntu or Fedora

It's aimed at users who don't know what a fan boy is and can't tell a Fedora from a Stetson.

I don't know why you think NFS doesn't support failover; check out Red Hat Cluster (PDF) or Sun Cluster. You will need a RAID array that has two host ports, such as VTrak E310s, IBM DS3200, HP StorageWorks 500, or Xserve RAID.

I would not suggest cluster file systems such as Lustre for a small installation; they're generally designed to scale up to hundreds or thousands of servers, but not to scale down to a handful.

"Redundant storage and hot pluggable drives for those for whom RAID is an insect spray can." If you don't know what RAID is, why would you bother specing a home-pc with hot swappable drives? "To add storage just slip in another drive and you are good to go." Yeah, assuming you got a server chassis with hot swappable drives. Which, by definition, the end-user this is targeted at doesn't.

They don't necessarily have to build their own machine. HP will have MediaMart Server, which is a headless machine with support for hot-swappable drives and will run Windows Home Server.

"Automated backups for every system on the net. Recover older versions of files. Single instance storage" Yeah, that's a good pitch, too. So far? Vapor-ware!

Several thousand are participating in the beta, and there's a forum full of people using it. Yep, sounds like vapor-ware to me.

"Remote access and administration. Remote control over the web --- again, intended for users who have no experience in any of this." Oh, there's a security hole just waiting for a portscan to come along!

Off by default.

This is aimed at Fanbois who just don't have the brains to make the leap to Ubuntu or Fedora.

WHS automatically replicates data across all attached hard drives, which can be internal/external and of different sizes, and will also automatically backup all my networked machines without duplicating files. If Ubuntu/Fedora can do that, then please enlighten me.

The target market is for people who don't install the OS themselves-- they buy a computer from an OEM with the hardware and OS preinstalled. The OEM will make sure that the drives are hot-swappable and such. Adding new drives and merging them into a RAID is done automatically and silently upon plugging the drive in. They'll be happy to make sure you buy only their specially branded "WHS compatible" hot swappable drives for that purpose. I would be surprised if a retail version is even available on shelves.

Single instance storage has existed since at least Windows 2000. The "recover older versions" thing is connected to the "older versions" shell extension, also connected to volume shadow copies, giving you the option to restore from both known backups on file and local VSS copies of a file. Automated remote backups aren't hard to implement with file sharing, and I would think that WHS comes with some simple UI to set it up, with which workstations to backup and corresponding credentials on each.

Remote control uses RDP. I think it will be configured to accept only connections on the local network, and will certainly require some kind of authentication.

See also:
Windows Home Server on Wikipedia
A demo video from MS
an OEM offering from HP

"How big is the burden in actual dollars? Take 100 server racks full of rack-mount servers. Each rack that requires 12 to 13 kilowatts, uses1.3 megawatts of power for the servers. The power for cooling to remove the heat generated is almost equal to that dissipated by the IT hardware itself. So the air conditioning will need another 1.3 megawatts of power. With the cost of electricity today, 1.3 megawatts at 10 cents a kilowatthour for a 24/7 operation is approximately $1.2 million per year. This is quite significant. And the pressure to reduce it is becoming urgent."

Every PC (desktop, noteobook, and workstation) in Dell's Small Business site offers XP as a configuration option. Same with every PC in HP's Small and Medium Business site (except RISC and Alpha workstations, of course). Same with every Lenovo. That covers the Big Three.

Are you buying "home" PCs for your clients? Are you limited to crappy vendors that only sell Vista PCs (even to business customers)?