Brendan on Windows Home Server

Some old foggies in the computing industry (myself included) remember a time when being called “skuzzy” was a complement because we thought the speaker was referring to SCSI , or the Small Computer System Interface which for a time dominated much of the...

At times life can be pretty complicated... backing up your home PCs and safeguarding your family files shouldn’t be, and when designing Windows Home Server the conscious decision was made to try to limit the number of configuration knobs and simply the...

I just saw the following referenced in an internal discussion list and given it’s public info, had to share this deal listed on Ben’s Bargains : Deal: 2-Pack Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB 32MB Drive $200 at Dell Home Coupons Dell Home has the 2-Pack...

Since releasing Power Pack 2 last month I've been contacted by a few users who were not automatically upgraded to Power Pack 2 despite having Windows Update enabled, even where and clicking the Update Now button doesn't find or install it: The ultimate...

Pssst, I've got a not so little secret for you. No, it's not that the English version of Power Pack 2 went live on Windows Update yesterday. It's not even that Windows Home Server has at long last reached MSDN and TechNet . What could be bigger than either...

Have you looked on Windows Update lately? No? You should... at least if you are a running an English version of Windows Home Server. Why so? This morning we just released Power Pack 2 to Windows Update! What do you need to get it? Just make sure automatic...

Commenter JohnCz recently suggested : Perhaps one day we'll see WHS OEMs offer a free netbook with WHS purchase.  Or perhaps a WHS bundled with an extender is on the horizon. While I can’t say when or if either will happen (partially due to pesky...

An often asked question by some of the more advanced users of Windows Home Server has been "Why doesn't it include built in support for hosting my own email on it?" The are two primary reasons, the most important being the fact that most users...

One of the major advantages Windows Home Server has over much of it’s competition (external hard drives, generic network attached storage devices, secondary PCs) is that it’s a full Windows Server under the hood and comes along with the ability to host...

What follows is probably common knowledge, however given the fact that I didn’t learn either until after joining Microsoft I feel I need to share the wonders of local drive sharing in Remote Desktop for the one or two folks who do not yet know. Take your...

I've seen a little talk here and there about just how much storage you can have in your Windows Home Server's storage pool... and an often tossed around number is 16TB... a limit and a number that is a bit of a myth. The actual number is more theoretical...

...have been greatly... what’s that? There have been no rumors? In that case I may just have to start some. Unfortunately I’ve been a wee bit silent since... September on this blog, and for that I apologize. Between getting ready for PDC and a Live Mesh...

Here we are, 12 days into the month and it nearly slipped my mind. This month is Be Nice to a Recruiter Month ! A few years ago I opted to celebrate with a gift (sans resume). This year I am celebrating with a referral of a friend who I think would make...

As great as Windows Home Server is on its own... it's nothing without partners who take what we give them, create a full solution (hardware and software) and make it available directly to consumers while offering value above and beyond what we could put...

The backup service built into Windows Home Server is designed for easy and efficient storage and recovery of files from multiple different PCs in the home as well as easy recovery. Because it does this job so well some have taken to using it as a longer...

With the release of Power Pack 1 we were able to give the Windows Home Server SDK documentation over on MSDN a nice update to clarify a number of things that were not clear, update examples to work better in Visual Studio 2008 and other useful bits. One...

There are quite a few ridiculously smart people on the Windows Home Server team... few more ridiculously smart than Jim Lyon who is not only the mother and father of the Windows Home Server backup system, but also lead developer on the team and I am happy...

A pain point for some users of Windows Home Server has been around third-party add-ins where loading many of them might cause the Home Server Console to take forever to load or worse... not load at all because of a crash within an add-in on startup. One...

I'm thrilled to announce just minutes ago the powers that be here flipped the switch to release the much anticipated Release Candidate of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 to the to the world! To quote some of the marketing bits: Microsoft is pleased to...

What's a man to do on a Saturday night when he's home alone while working on a new Windows Home Server add-in and feels the need to take a break? Write a blog post to introduce himself come Monday morning of course! My name is Brendan... and I'm a Windows...