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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
They can't copy files to anywhere...
Microsoft Home Server Converts Files to a Secure Format for Your Security.
Microsoft will gladly sell you a one use un-convert license when you need to see the data.
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
From what I understand from the article is that if you save certain file types to a Home Server for backup purposes from a workstation, you can corrupt them if you edit the original files and try to back them up onto the server again. Well that defeats the whole purpose of having a backup system. Like photos for example. If I backup all my photos onto the Home Server, then I decide to change the contrast on a few of them on my everyday PC, I can corrupt the ones I've saved on the Home Server if I save over the original backups. Then if I decide I need space on my PC and delete the ones saved there, my edited photos are inaccessible if I didn't save them anywhere else.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
According to the MS knowledge base entry:
;-)
"Make sure that you have a backup copy of any important program files before you store these files on a system that is running Windows Home Server."
In other words, use something else to backup the files first if you intend to backup them with Windows Home Server
A dvd-writer isn't feasible to backup nearly 300gb.
Gone!
Well since the article NEVER mentions backup I'm trying to figure out why the blurb and everyone is going on about backups being corrupted. What is actually happening is that there is a bug in WHS folder sharing. If you edit files with particular programs that exist on a WHS share the files will be corrupted.
Here is the KB article http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/946676/en-us?spid=12624
It too doesn't mention using WHS to backup but does say that you should backup the possible affected files before storing them on WHS.
How do you know I'm not just twice as likely to defend my home from a friend or family member?
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
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.
I mean really, after the first 6143569056076952107294386875907695350 times maybe it was worthy of a chuckle, but to keep on modding up this joke suggests some form of psychosis.
Wait, I'll put this in a way that you mods can understand:
1. go to slashdot
2. find a story
3. find a comment on that story
4. post a tired, old, lame-ass joke for the 9 billionth time
5. ???????
6. GET MODDED UP!
Ok, I followed the silly meme, where's my +5 Funny?
MS-DOS and Windows users seem to take it for granted that a file that is across the network is accessed via different APIs,
I can't speak for MS-DOS (are there any MS-DOS users left?), in Windows you don't use a different API for a network files. Any differences are taken care of far below the application level.
different user interfaces,
Really? On my Windows machine, networked files show up in Windows Explorer just like local files. If anything, it's not different *enough*-- i.e. it would be nice to have a mark in the icon to tell me if a file is on a network drive, especially when I'm on unreliable wifi networks.
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."
You never *had* to do that. Well, ok, maybe pre-95 versions of Windows. But Windows 95 would work just fine if you typed \\network\path into an Open dialog. I did that just a couple years ago at a hospital I was working at with some ancient machines still in use.
Of course you have the option to map a drive letter if you want, and there may be some buggy applications that didn't work unless they had a drive letter to work with, but you can't blame Microsoft for buggy third party apps.
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.
Maybe they just think you're crazy for "criticizing" Windows for something you basically made-up.
I'm not a huge Microsoft fan, but most of your post is just plain wrong. I know this is Slashdot and thus you were +5 Insightful, but please make some effort to at least be a little accurate next time you post. Let's reduce the amount of bullcrap here, not increase it.
Comment of the year
Ok, 168 MB is 168*1024*1024 = 176,160,768 bytes.
A Commodore 64's floppy disk, the 1541 runs at 300 baud. So that's 176160768/300 = 587203 seconds for an equivalent copy. That's 9786 minutes, or 163.1 hours. That's 6.796 days.
The same copy will take Vista 131 years. That's 47815 days.
That means that a Commodore 64 w. 1541 drive is roughly 47815/6.796 = 7036 times faster than Windows Vista.
Now, for a human number. An average typist gets about 50-70 wpm according to wiki. So we'll call the average 60wpm. Seems reasonable. That's 60*5 = 300 characters per minute. Since a C64 moves data at 300 characters per second, we can say that a human typist is 60 times slower than the Commodore 64. That means that a human typist is 7036/60 = 117 times faster than a Vista file copy.
Impressive!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
I am pro gun ownership. I think this whole, "hold at gun point" thing is stupid. I'm sorry, I've always been taught that you only draw your weapon to do one thing, fire it.
I have a few hand guns. Most are locked up safely. I have no kids so I keep on in a desk next to my bed, ready to be loaded. Just slide in the clip, and I'm good to go. We have had a few breakins lately in my area. If you break in, I will not be holding you for the police. I am in my right to kill, and I will kill. To hold at gunpoint is to risk that you might have a gun, or a friend I did not notice. It is stupid and very unsafe. I have a wife to protect, and property to protect. I really think anyone who holds at gunpoint had no intent of using the weapon in the first place. This is bad gun ownership.
You should only draw your weapon when you have identified a target and intend to fire on it. Hesitation might get you killed. The only exception might be in the case of military and police.
You are editing a file that is saved directly to a shared folder on WHS, which WHS accepts and gives the A-OK signal to your software, then later has a problem writing the file, and tells you about it, with no chance of recovering the file at that time. Since this can happen after you have exited your software, you have no way of recovering the file.
The problem is not:
The third one is the trickiest. See, if you go to the current WHS Discover site (click Help and How-To's) you will see that the big thing is Remote Access, Media Sharing, and Computer Backup. This would lead people to believe that any other use, is not what it was meant for, and when something goes wrong, you should have known better.
But, one only needs to look back at previous pages for WHS to see that Sharing was a central feature. Yes, full sharing, not just Media Sharing. Even the Overview of that page focuses on sharing first, and backup (protection) was third. The first overview item was Sharing, and that is simply what this problem is about, shared folders. Either for your own use as a networked server, or to share with other users.
Now, if you go to Eric Bott's blog, you will see the explanation that the largest factor is "a home server is under extreme load." Well, I'm sorry, but if the touted role, even at the beginning and not right now, was acting as a share folder to save your stuff to, then by damn it better do that. If the server gets loaded down, it should not pretend it got the file and tell you later that it didn't, it should just either not respond (and your software would have to let you know it couldn't do it) or it should give an error response (your software's problem now).
Honestly, this product was marketed as a home server for storing and sharing your files, with acting as a backup server making 3rd on the list of features. Now, they want to change that and say that it is for backup first, file sharing from special locations and under special conditions, and not really for file storage.
Cause you can't get a tan from an amber monitor. If you do, there is something horribly wrong.