Windows Home Server trashes files

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 28th December 2007
Comments (7) Stumble
Windows Home Server trashes files

The HP MediaSmart Server is one of the appliances known to suffer from the data-eating bug.

Microsoft has announced a rather major problem with the Home Server version of its popular Windows operating system: it seems that it enjoys trashing your files when you run certain programs.

In a Microsoft KnowledgeBase article Microsoft has admitted that using “certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server.”

Now, you'd think that the problem was probably poor interoperability with esoteric third-party software, right? Wrong. The list of software known to cause data-gobbling glitches includes Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office OneNote, Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money, and even the popular SyncToy powertool. Additional problems are caused if you use Intuit Quicken and QuickBooks to do your accounts. The finger of data loss has been pointed at BitTorrent applications, too: not even your Heroes HD collection is safe.

Currently Microsoft has no workaround for the flaw, and recommends ensuring you “have a backup copy of any important program files before you store these files on a system that is running Windows Home Server.”

Windows Home Server is pre-installed on home server appliances from companies including HP, Life|ware, Fujitsu-Seimens, and Velocity. All these systems suffer from the bug, although devices based on earlier versions of the software such as Windows XP Embedded are thought to be immune.

The cause of the data loss is not currently known, although Microsoft claims to be “researching this problem.” For now it would certainly seem to be prudent to heed their advice and ensure your backups are up to date, even if you are not currently experiencing any issues.

Anyone use a Windows Home Server system and been bitten by the bug, or has everyone gone over to Linux for their home server needs? Give us a shout via the forums.
Quote r4tch3t 28th December 2007, 12:56
Always used Linux for servers, as does everyone I know, whats not to like, its fast even on low spec'd systems, Can use nearly any old hardware, FREE, proven and mature technology. Fairly easy to learn and transparent once setup. Why pay I say.
Quote Glider 28th December 2007, 13:03
The only thing Windows has the upper hand on on the server part is AD... Can't argue with that... Samba can be set up as an Domain controller, but it lacks a bit of functions Windows AD has...

Just a shame a Domain is so easy to tear down...
Quote Redbeaver 28th December 2007, 14:16
nom nom nom nom nomo :D

i trust win2003 server anytime of the day, and *nix stuff as well naturally... but who in their right mind would wanna use Home Server?

note that "right mind's" definition differ from 1 person to another :)
Quote Drexial 28th December 2007, 14:20
If you need copies of all the data stored to the home server.... whats the point in even having it.....
im going to be setting up a raid server for files soon myself. I was considering Home Server, then realized I had no real use for it. I can do everything I want with a copy of at most XP Pro if not a version of linux. It will be nice to have a mass of files offloaded from my main machine. Will run so much smoother, plus the added benefits of having the raid setup.
Quote C-Sniper 28th December 2007, 16:37
wow..... good thing got *nix running for my servers.
Quote TimB 2nd January 2008, 04:58
Seems most of the commenters don't really understand what WHS is. The big ticket feature of Windows Home Server is the automated backup with the single instance store to reduce space. Far as I know, no other system aside from large commercial applications have this feature. Beyond that it does the standard stuff, like acting as a file server and a media server.

Incidently, WHS does not support domains, only peer to peer networks.
Quote r4tch3t 2nd January 2008, 05:46
And *nix can't? You can easily do with a simple rsync program with you could make into a looping script. Thats the manual way. Plus there are several programs listed in the add/remove applications program in Ubuntu.

EDIT the script, from here.
Code:
rsync -r -t -v --progress --delete -c -l -z /home/axel/ /home/axel/smb4k/CORE2DUO/Core2Duo(E)/backup/
-r copies also all subdirectories within main directory
-t preserves modification times
-v verbose mode, shows more information
--progress shows progress during transfer
--delete deletes files in destination which are not present in the source
-c compares files contents by checksum
-l copies symbolic links
-z compresses files for faster transfer
/home/axel/ source directory
/home/axel/smb4k/CORE2DUO/Core2Duo(E)/backup/ destination directory
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