Windows Home Server Details

phorest writes "Perhaps Microsoft read the comments from the Slashdot community on Windows Home Server? In any event Microsoft is opening up WHS for users to construct their own system after all; though I'd like to see the price of this OS release before making the jump. From the review: "At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week... Microsoft previewed its long-awaited Windows Home Server product, a Windows Server 2003 R2-based server for consumers that dispenses with the complexities of most Windows Server versions and provides the core storage, sharing, and remote access functionality that digital media and home networking enthusiasts require... Microsoft will make WHS available in two ways: Bundled with new WHS hardware and software-only, the latter so that enthusiasts can install the system on the hardware of their choice... If you're building your own home server, Microsoft requires a 1 GHz processor or better, 512 MB of RAM or more, and as many disks as you think you need. The company will support multiple home servers on the same network, but it's still murky how that will work."

Comments

IdiotProof-Lockup

[Constantine XVI]

I really think that MS needs to lock up WHS to be idiot-proof tight. If you need to put software on it (plugins for mediacenters, game servers, etc.) you should have to burn it to a CD, put it in the server, and then go back to the interface to see what you're going to install, and confirm it by pushing a button on the server. Yes, it's a hassle, but makes sure it's near 99% idiot-proof. Clicking through boxes is one thing. Having to physically push different things should set off alarms for someone

Basic AIDA, folks.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Perhaps Microsoft read the comments from the Slashdot community on Windows Home Server?

More likely they are currently flooding the market with "educational" pieces designed to increase the public's awareness of a new category of product; its no coincidence that the forthcoming product will match what the public has been trained to expect of it in advance.

(Hint: look up "AIDA" as a marketing term sometime...)

Hmm?

[joshetc]

Windows Home Server = Windows XP Pro? I was under the impression that Windows 2003 was simply Windows XP with some goodies for servers, if they take that aspect out aren't they basically selling your Windows XP with a couple patches?

I don't see why they would market something based on Windows 2003 right now anyway, with Vista here / around the corner (depending on who you are)

New Apple Base station

[moofo]

By the way, the New Apple Airport Extreme Base station supports sharing USB 2 Hard drives on the network. 50 Users Limit and there is a small utility to put privileges.

That makes an almost solid state device to:

Provide wireless Access (N) in your home
Act as router (3 ports)
Share USB printers
Share storage

To me, it's a more integrated and "out of the box" solution.

I know, it can't serve webpages...

But still, it seems a little easier for laymen.

Re:New Apple Base station

[b0s0z0ku]

I know, it can't serve webpages...

Can it back up the data on the USB drive automatically? Can it share other devices like scanners? What would be a cool application of this is if it could read music off of the USB drive directly and only need a computer (or a wireless remote) for control. Combine AirTunes and a USB drive. Sort of like a Sonos box with the advantage of built-in storage.

-b.

Re:New Apple Base station

[mspohr]

Yes, Apple always excels in design.

However, it is a closed system. As long as it does what you need (and you don't want a web server), it should be fine but the Linksys NSLU2 is an open system that can be customized to do whatever you want.

BTW, the Linksys WRT54G WiFi router also is open source and people have added an amazing range of capabilities. there are about five different open source projects customizing it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRT54G

Re:New Apple Base station

[GeckoX]

I'm not suggesting that, not at all.

I'm only digging at the mindset here specifically actually. Sony is evil for selling a high tech gadget for 600. Apple can do no wrong for doing the same. It's just a bizarre viewpoint around here. I'm not intending an actual comparison between the two by any means.

My biggest question is why, when people here on slash are much more informed and have a pretty good idea what things are worth, is this the case? $600 is a bloody expensive phone. (Sure, that's pretty norm in the SMS market, but that's a niche market subsidized for the most part by big business...not really comparable)

But because it's Apple...the Apple tax is ok, even respectable to pay. Arguably, they're charging more than it's worth to produce.

With Sony, even with them selling bleeding edge tech at a LOSS, that's not good enough.

Really, I just don't understand how the average /.er places value on things, none of it makes much sense.

NAS anyone?

[Library Spoff]

I appreciate people wish to share photos etc online with friends and family.
The slashdot crowd take old pc`s and turn em into servers.

Surely the way forward for home users is networked storage that probably use less AC than a PC?
Especially as we are now seeing combined adsl-router-NAS with built in raid. Is there then less chance of getting owned than with a MS based system? I know server 2003 that this is based on is more secure than previous MS offerings, but still...

Re:NAS anyone?

[nine-times]

If all you want is a NAS, why not go with something from Buffalo? I've never used one myself, but it's a simple Linux-based NAS. From what I hear, you can also buy a version of these things that can be heavily modified, including installing debian or gentoo. But if you want something easy, the Buffalo products themselves aren't supposed to require much expertise.

Re:First?! Hmm...

[CDarklock]

I really like all the things WHS says it will do, because it means I can put my mind on other things. I'm just not really sure how good a job it does.

Many of the things in WHS are things I've been saying I was going to do for years. "I'm going to set up a SAN for all our documents and pictures," I keep saying, "and I'm going to schedule nightly rolling backups for all the PCs in the house." Well, I just don't have time. But if I could go out and pick up a $1500 PC, click a few buttons, and be finished... I'd do it.

My major concern is the same as yours: will it actually do what I want? If it does, great, but what if it doesn't? At least if I buy $1500 worth of commodity hardware and cobble up a home-grown solution, I can make it do SOMETHING. So the hardware+software option looks like it might be a bad deal; I think I'll do better if I buy my own components with an eye toward the manual solution, in the event that the software proves inadequate.

Hey, I may work at Microsoft, but I'm not stupid. Since when is v1.0 of anything trustworthy? Screw the party line, I want my shit to work. I'll give it a fair shake, but if it rolls over and plays dead, it can stay there.

What does this do

[rsilvergun]

that I can't already do with share level access and the appropriate client application? Does it handle sharing removable drives better (i.e. mp3 players)? Will I be able to create NT domains with it? Will mapped network drives finally stop periodically vanishing?

I mean, really, does any home user need the kind of performance a networking OS brings? You're gonna have at most 10 computers hooked up to the darn thing. Now, otoh, it might be a cheap way to build a domain :).

Re:You have to be crazy to pick WHS

[oatworm]

Assuming you didn't try to set it up to do a domain, here are some quick tips... and I can't believe someone modded you insightful, either. Good heavens.

1. To share files on Windows Server 2003 in a workgroup environment, you have two choices. You can either create a login for each person that will access them on the server or you can set the NTFS permissions to "Everybody->Read" on your shares. Make sure that share permissions are "Everybody->Full Access" - this actually isn't a security hole since Windows Server 2003 grants the least permissions it can based on what you give it, which means it'll run off NTFS permissions instead, which are far more flexible. This will also give you one place to look for permissions issues, instead of trying to guess how NTFS and share permissions are working together that day.

2. You probably didn't set your IIS page to allow anonymous access. This is as easy as right-clicking on the web site in IIS, choosing "Properties", then going to "Directory Security", clicking the first "Edit" button at the top, and then checking the "Enable anonymous logon" box.

I'm not a big fan of Windows, but it's not THAT difficult. That's not to say you didn't do better by going with Samba and Apache, either.

Opportunity for Hardware OEMS and Linux!

[businessnerd]

So now since MS is going to spend a ton of money on marketing the idea of home users running file servers, I think this is a perfect opportunity for the likes of Dell and HP to sell their own, less expensive HomeNAS. They take a NAS device, that they already make for the enterprise, throw on a lightweight Linux. Throw on some Samba, Apache, etc. Write some easy to use "Wizards" to make it really easy for the normal Windows user to connect their PC's, upload files, and do things like schedule backups, and you have a much lower cost solution than the likes of Microsoft. On top of that, it's more secure, more stable, and the software is OSS!

I've already got a "home server"

[Paulrothrock]

I've got a Mac Mini at home that's set up as a fax server, a fileserver with an external USB 2.0 hard drive, a print server, a web server, and an ssh portal. Setting it up was ridiculously easy: - One click to enable printer sharing. - One click to enable file sharing - A few clicks and keystrokes to make non-admin accounts and home folders for my wife and I Then I did a couple slightly geeky things like partition the external drive and write a cron job to rsync to my web host nightly that most people wouldn't be doing, but the Mac Mini, even without a special "server" OS, is a great way to get a cheap, reliable, Unix-based server. Heck, I've even got mine running as a development server with PHP/MySQL and RoR (thanks to Locomotive). And to make me feel less guilty about having a computer running 24/7, it's running the ClimatePrediction.net BOINC project. In the future, when I get an iTV, I'm definitely going to be having iTunes running in both of our separate user accounts so that we can stream our stuff to our TV. Lately I've been hooking my Powerbook up to our TV using S-Video and the headphone jack. The only problem I can see using iTV is videos I acquire through, *ahem*, alternative distribution methods will require some conversion before they're viewable. However, season passes to shows through the iTunes music store means I can finally, FINALLY, tell Comcast where they can put their $70/month internet access. From what I've read about the Windows Home Server, it doesn't give me much more capability than my Mini, other than it can be installed in tower enclosures

Re:Multiple Servers

[Overly Critical Guy]

Microsoft thinks people:

1.) Want to be network administrator.
2.) Want to spend money on yet another computer taking up space in their house.

People already have all their data on their main computer. They just want to stream it out to things and back it up now and then. This is a product searching for demand that's not there, to make it seem like Microsoft is "branching out."