Darryl Burling @ Work : Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server - oops

dburling — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 06:01:22 GMT

This is bad...

Must fix this soon....

Windows Home Server Shipped

dburling — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 21:36:50 GMT

This is news I didn't report last week, but Windows Home Server was released to RTM just over a week ago.

I was really pleased with how far the product moved between Beta 2 and RTM. There was a lot of polish put in and some of the things that didn't quite work well in Beta 2 were fixed and now work really well.

A couple of days ago I was asked for photo's of our dog. I logged on to my home server using the DDNS address and did a search through the files for "Minnie" - the name of the dog, and the files I wanted appeared - these were photos tagged with "Minnie" that were stored on the server. I could then select individual files for download by clicking a checkbox and click the download button - the files were zipped up and I was prompted download a zip file rather than a bunch of individual JPEG files.

If you have been on the Beta, you download the trial version of Windows Home Server from the Connect site now.

Now - all we need is to get some more add-ins built. IMHO, this is one of the best v1 products we've launched for some time.

Home Server - Code2Fame - competition idea

dburling — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:17:12 GMT

If you haven't been living under a rock, you'll know that the Windows Home Server team recently shipped Release Candidate 1. If you haven't looked any further than the headlines you may not know that the RC is broadly available. If you didn't already have access to the beta, you can now head over to Connect and sign up to be on the beta.

If you have some spare time and want to enter the cool Code2Fame competition that's also going (which doesn't seem to be restricted to US residents for a change) and don't know what to write, you may want to grab my idea and code it up.

One of the things I found slightly annoying about the otherwise exceedingly cool storage system in Windows Home Server was that it wrecks havoc with Virtual Machine VHD files.

However, I have installed Virtual Server on Windows Home Server and run a Virtual Machine on a separate drive. This means that I get to use the server for actual work rather than just sitting there as a glorified hard drive. But then how do I back up the Virtual Machine?

The obvious solution is to install the Windows Home Server client on the guest, however if you have a lot of machines on the network this could become problematic as it reduces the precious 10 client limit by one.

Another solution (and my suggestion for the competition) would be to write a Home Server Add-in that works with Virtual Server R2 SP1 that takes advantage of the Volume Shadow Copy Service to take a snapshot of the VHD file while the virtual machine is running and save it to the WHS storage system. You could even take difference snap shots and do differential backups of the VHD periodically.

Please note - this idea has not been validated, but according to my limited understanding of how these things work, it should be possible.

Unfortunately I don't have time to enter the competition myself, so if you have some time, you might like to take up the challenge of building a Virtual Server add-in for Windows Home Server.

If anyone manages to pull this off, please let me know!

Windows Home Server CTP

dburling — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:34:28 GMT

The WHS team have just released a CTP of Windows Home Server. This release is much more complete than the Beta 2 build. Notably other than bug fixes it also includes:

The ability to reconfigure your UPNP router for remote access to your server
Integrated Dynamic DNS (<yourname>.livenode.com)
Improved first run experience
Ability to add and remove Add-Ins
The ability to turn off network health notifications on individual workstations

You can sign up for the beta on the connect site.

If you've got a great idea for an Add-in, why not go and get the SDK and start developing one? I'm keen to see a file replication service between my PC's and the server.

To get started with Home Server Add-ins you should start here as a primer, and then read this and this.

If you develop that file replication service, let me know :-)

Windows Home Server

dburling — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:39:53 GMT

One of the cool things that you'll see in the Microsot Technical Briefings over the last couple of weeks is Windows Home Server.

I sometimes get asked where to go to get more information on Windows Home Server. The places you should head to are:

Microsoft @ CES.

This is where it all began - the first time the world got to see and hear about Windows Home Server at CES in Las Vagas in January 2007. Video located here.

Product Overview

There is a kind of viral overview page that gives you a bit of the basic information available at http://stopdigitalamnesia.com.

Chalie Kindels Blog.

Charlie is the guy who is heading up the Windows Home Server effort. He often has information on his blog about WHS, so you should check it out and bookmark it. His blog is found here (note it currently seems to be down).

Windows Home Server team blog.

The Windows Home Server team have started a TechNet blog. It also has lots of really good information both on the product and how it fits in the market and in Microsoft. Check out the WHS Team blog.

There are also some community sites springing up around home server, check out mshomeserver.org for a cool start.

Cool stuff. Check it out.

Technorati tags: Windows, Home Server, WHS, Microsoft, HomeServer