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Windows Home Server Corrupts Files
crustymonkey points out a ComputerWorld article which says that "Microsoft Corp. has warned Windows Home Server users not to edit files stored on their backup systems with several of its programs, including Vista Photo Gallery and Office's OneNote and Outlook, as well as files generated by popular finance software such as Quicken and QuickBooks."
Crustymonkey asks Don't back up your files to Windows Home Server, as recommended by Microsoft themselves? I'm not exactly sure what the point is in having a home server if you can't back up files on it."
"I'm not exactly what the point is in having a home server if you can't back up files on it."
Profit
The blurb says that it corrupts files on the backup when you try to edit them...
Isn't part of the point of a backup that you DON'T edit the backup media?
I can look at this two ways... MS didn't test this enough because it didn't occur to them someone might do something so ridiculous...
OR...
Not only did MS create the misfeature that is editing backups, but they screwed it up too...
Am I still feeling charitable from the holiays? Hmm...
So I read TFA thinking, so there's a glitch when windows has virus X on wednesdays only, and only in regions that have the chinese language pack, and only on systems with 64-bit version installed with a sound blaster driver installed.
But for the first time ever, slashdot's title isn't sensationalist. Microsoft simply states, yeah, for no apparent reason, files are getting corrupt using our operating system.
Jeebus F'n H Chroist! You had one job to do, and you screwed it up royally.
It's one thing when some obscure feature doesn't work correctly. It's another thing when a fundamental operation of your software hasn't worked for A YEAR since it came out.
IT'S AN OPERATING SYSTEM. Your job is to interface the hardware with the user and software.
*sigh* Bring on the "my linux-distro of choice doesn't do that, that makes me right all along" comments.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
A dvd-writer isn't feasible to backup nearly 300gb.
Gone!
Having come from a DECNet background, when I first encountered PC networking I was completely flummoxed by the situation.
MS-DOS and Windows users seem to take it for granted that a file that is across the network is accessed via different APIs, different user interfaces, and has generally different properties from files that are stored locally. In the MS-DOS days they were always mumbling about The Redirector. Why does a file need to be REdirected across the network? Why isn't it just directed, the way it would be directed to a disk volume or a floppy or what have you?
It isn't so long ago that most Windows programs couldn't even reference cross-network files in a straightforward way in a file open dialog. You first had to assign a "drive letter" and "map a network drive." (And, of course, all references to that file would break if you ever assigned the remote directory to a different drive letter).
And when they finally got around to fixing it in the OS, it only fixed it for new programs that were written to some new API. Existing programs, even things like Visual C++ utilities, continued to go through the mapping tapdance, because apparently the existing OS file dialog routines weren't updated to do things the new way.
The assumption that files across the network are totally differents sorts of thing from local files appeared to be so ingrained in the Windows culture that Windows people don't even understand why it is a criticism of Windows to mention this. They think it has to be that way, because, well, they're across the network. As if there were some physical property of 100-base-T cables that made them intrinsically different from SATA cables.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If you need "user friendly" you shouldn't be running a server.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Which do well to explain the reason why, when a $1000 PC is faster than a $1,000,000 mainframe, that businesses still buy the mainframe. And then they stock the washrooms with single-ply toilet paper to cut costs.
Microsoft has made a lot of noise about being "Enterprise class" software, and having "Reliable" servers, but when things like this happen, it just goes to show that Microsoft won't ever be able to touch big iron:
The next time I hear anyone use the term "enterprise class" and Microsoft in the same sentence, I'm simply going to refer them to this bug. Totally unacceptable - even for a gaming OS.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Dood, slow down.
The original parent comment was about something (an alternative) "point and click easy" like the WHS. Do you really expect someone who relies on the "I click enough buttons and it works so it must be right" model instead of the "i set it up correctly so it must work" model to actually know about things like VNC, SSH tunnels or a router?
I don't mean to dog you and I'm definately not trying to troll you, but we really are dealing with people doing things they really have no idea/clue about. I would probably suggest that they have no business doing it without investing a little more time and effort in learning something about it but they read the side of a box and think it is a good idea. Making them learn something isn't my call though, Microsoft seems to be good at making idiots feel smart. Hang around some of the novice windows users who think they are smart, you will see exactly what I'm talking about when one of them explains to you the difference between a BCC and CC when dealing with email and then tells you he found out because of a popup in office and vista or some shit like that. When you realize their first computer was a windows 95 or 98 box almost 10 years ago and they are just finding this out, you will understand their needs a little more.
If you don't know anyone like that, start doing repair work for random people. Put an add in the paper or something and do a couple dozen repairs out of your house. Or I can give you a number of other examples of the types of people we/you are dealing with (point and clickers). Most of them are fresh too. Like just recently, a customer who thought his CDROM was broke because he knocked his tower off the desktop and it wouldn't close all the way. So he decided to remove it, take it apart and oil the motors and gears and after putting it back in, when he started the computer up, it said "insert system disk". 9:30 at night, I get the call explaining every thing to me and attempted to trouble shoot is over the phone, I had him reconfirm the connections for the IDE cables on both the HD and CDROM. Then I had him disconnect the CDROM, Sure enough, the HD worked and the computer loaded. 10:15pm, I get another call from the same customer, it is doing it again. How am I supposed to know he plugged the CDROM that he tore apart and we determined was causing the problem back in after I hung up. 35 minutes of checking bios settings, rechecking the cables and troubleshooting later, he suggest putting a the XP system CD in the computer and starting it with that in it. I asked if he had another CDROM because last I worked on his system, he only had one. He told me he fixed the CDROM that we determined was causing the exact same problem an hour ago and put it back in. He refused to associate the same problem with the same device. And then when I told him the CDROM was bad, unplug it and see what happens, He insisted that he had fixed it (he took the CDROM apart again) and the door closed all the way now so nothing was wrong with it.
Finally, I got his wife on the phone and told her the story as I told you, she said if it is doing the same thing, then if I unplug the CDROM, the computer will start. I said that was the plan but I couldn't get her husband to try it because he claims he "fixed the CDROM" and "nothing was wrong with it because he fixed it. So she ended up unplugging the CDROM and sure enough, it worked sans the CDROM. She brought it in the next day, we swapped the drive out and all has been fine since. I asked her to make sure he didn't call me for support late at night again unless he was going to listen to what I had to say.
No. It just means that no one has created a decent home server setup.
There's plenty of reasons to run a home server. Backing up your laptop without having to remember to plug in some external drive is one. Having a real htpc setup is another. People have lots of data, and a home server is the way to manage that. However there aren't any good home server tools for it.
Maybe I should make one in my copious free time. Of course I have said Linux could blow me.
Wow, I guess I get the important parts of this with my Linux Server running BackupPC. Every night I get incremental backups, single fulls a week. Oh, add on the NFS share and it stores files. Add on the HDHomerun to record all my TV shows via MythTV.
And it was free. As in speech and beer.
Oh, yeah. And it works.