Windows Home Server goes RTM

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 17th July 2007
Comments (15) Stumble
Microsoft has announced that Windows Home Server has been released to manufacturing. Systems will ship with the OS installed by October.

Microsoft has announced that Windows Home Server has been released to manufacturing. Systems will ship with the OS installed by October.

Microsoft has announced that Windows Home Server has been released to manufacturing this week and will (not surprisingly) appear on home servers that turn up on the market in September and October.

Senior product manager Joel Sider told ComputerWorld that “the main change from RC was that the domain for remote access is now Homeserver.com. We also did some fine-tuning and polishing and killed off the last few bugs.”

What’s quite outstanding is the fact that Windows Home Server has gone from public announcement to RTM in just over six months.

Sider said that simplicity was the key here – his team was very conservative on the feature set and that helped to prevent things from taking endless amounts of development time.

There has been no announcement made on when the operating system will be made available to end-users so that they can use Windows Home Server without the need to buy a whole new PC. However, Sider stated that there will be an evaluation edition available that will time out after 120 days – this is typical of Microsoft’s evaluation software.

Will you be building a server based on Windows Home Server, or are have you already followed our Linux Home Server guide? Discuss the pros and cons of each in the forums.
Quote steveo_mcg 17th July 2007, 17:53
I think i'll stick with my Debian stable box, its called that for a reason
Quote jezmck 17th July 2007, 17:56
Does anyone know whether we will be able to buy it OEM, and if so, how much?
Quote Tim S 17th July 2007, 17:57
Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzle
Does anyone know whether we will be able to buy it OEM, and if so, how much?

In the article ;)

There has been no announcement made on when the operating system will be made available to end-users so that they can use Windows Home Server without the need to buy a whole new PC. However, Sider stated that there will be an evaluation edition available that will time out after 120 days – this is typical of Microsoft’s evaluation software.
Quote jezmck 17th July 2007, 18:07
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim S
In the article ;)...
Boo, I scanned for a pound-sign (that's a '£' dear US readers) and saw none.
Quote DarkLord7854 17th July 2007, 18:24
I tried the beta, wasn't that bad :)
Quote Firehed 17th July 2007, 19:08
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkLord7854
I tried the beta, wasn't that bad :)
Good to hear. I was in the beta program and downloaded it, but never got a chance to install it since my XP+Samba shares setup works fine. I'm quite tempted to buy a dedicated NAS box (Infrant ReadyNAS probably) and have been for a while, but all that would get me is a smaller formfactor and AFP shares for the most part (and OS X plays fine with Samba, though NTFS doesn't like some of its naming conventions) which isn't _really_ worth $650+ for me right now. Sure, it's got RAID and all that good stuff as well, but I'm undecided if the cost of the extra hard drive is really worth the extra peace of mind considering I'm now good about backing stuff up that I actually care about.

Of course, the only real reason I'd bother with Windows Home Server is if it allows a filesystem that isn't as restrictive as NTFS (ie, plays better with Macs), otherwise it makes little sense for me to not just keep my setup that works fine right now or go for a dedicated box with a couple more features.
Quote Flibblebot 17th July 2007, 19:54
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Sider
...and killed off the last few bugs.
Really, has this guy learnt nothing from every MS release...?!
As with most other people, I'll wait and see what the price is, but my Ubuntu box is playing quite happily at the moment.
Quote sam.g.taylor 17th July 2007, 20:14
Wait a minute, are you sure this isn't a hoax?

"simplicity" and "outstanding" have rarely (never?) been associated with modern Windows releases...
Quote proxess 17th July 2007, 21:14
just an attempt to take over the server market.
Quote Spaceraver 17th July 2007, 22:47
and a truely fragile one to say the least. I followed Glider's server guide and it is stable as hell, doesn't chew up resources as if there is no tomorrow and runs fine and dandy even with me logged in locally on X. (old amd 1ghz lappy with 256mb ram) were i to put together a server using a microsoft OS, it would be chugging alone at a snails pace..
Quote C-Sniper 17th July 2007, 22:48
im sticking to linux since i only need a 500mhz processor to run everything with 128mb memory
Quote DXR_13KE 17th July 2007, 23:02
linux server for me please..... :D
Quote Sparrowhawk 18th July 2007, 05:57
Linux indeed.
Though, I have to wonder, if this is RTM, does that mean we can expect it to be pirated soon?
/Pirated in 3.. 2... 1...
Quote yakyb 18th July 2007, 12:55
what driver model does it use server 2003 i guess how readily availible are these drivers for new motherboards
Quote completemadness 20th July 2007, 03:16
ill stick with Ubuntu Server - tyvm microsoft

Although id be interested to see if you can start picking up 1U/2U boxes for home use :D :D
Quote:
Sider said that simplicity was the key here – his team was very conservative on the feature set and that helped to prevent things from taking endless amounts of development time.
So basically they decided to put f*ck all in it
Log in

You are not logged in, please login with your forum account below. If you don't already have an account please register to start contributing.





Stats: 0.475 seconds