Submitted by “At APC we’ve been running the Beta 2 edition of Windows Home Server for the past two months and it’s acquitted itself surprisingly well – no doubt a reflection on the time this ‘server for the rest of us’ spent in the Redmond skunkworks. There’s still some ‘fit and finish’ to appear before it hits the Release Candidate milestone around Q3, prior to the platform’s debut towards the end of this year – but from what we’ve seen so far, we’d rate Windows Home Server as one of Microsoft’s most polished and most impressive 1.0 releases to date. Here’s a walkthrough gallery of screenshots from the Beta 2 build of Windows Home Server.” There’s also a screenshot gallery for Longhorn Server Beta 3.
Linux could take a leaf out of such easy GUI’s to setup shares and a webserver.
Of course, it never will, and the day you see a nice GUI raid tool for Linux, hell would of frozen over (or Earth to that matter, given it’s only getting hotter).
Hmm it’s tactical they haven’t shown a flip3D screenshot.
The irony of the whole thing is the fact that Solaris used to be bashed by Linux users as ‘old’ and ‘archiac’; from the limited experience so far, it seems that Sun is working to improve Solaris to lower the bar of entry.
I think the day when you start seeing small businesses deploy Linux, then it would have made a successful entrace.
Eeeh? You haven’t used Linux for this I take it? Setting up a webserver in Linux is a click’n’point operation and has been so for years. System -> Administration -> Services, and click in the checkbox to the left of “Webserver”. Webserver up and running.
Eeeh? You haven’t used Linux for this I take it? Setting up a webserver in Linux is a click’n’point operation and has been so for years.
No it isn’t.
System -> Administration -> Services, and click in the checkbox to the left of “Webserver”. Webserver up and running.
Where did you pick this up from, and do you really believe this actually gets a web server up and running?
Yes it is. Take a look at any Gnome Desktop
Hmm… When I go to the System menu in Gnome and chooses the Administration submenu I can see a menu item called “Services” (“Tjenester” in Danish). Click on the menu item, enter root password (may vary depending on configuration of distribution) and up comes a window with a number of services and “Webserver (Apache2)” (or whatever webserver you have installed as a service) will show up. Click in the checkbox at the side of “Webserver” and it will be started. Proof: Start firefox and enter “localhost”.
That’s where I picked it up.
And yes, it does get a webserver up and running. Does it get a lot of other things up and running? Nope. Just the webserver. Is it particularly useful? Naah, but neither is the IIS in itself. It takes a lot more but we were only discussing the webserver. Not a webservice based on MySQL/PostgreSQL, PHP, Apache, Java etc. You’ll have to write that code yourself – or at least installing it before it can be used.
Yes it is. Take a look at any Gnome Desktop
Gnome is not a server or an operating system, and I do not see an Apache administration console anywhere.
Hmm… When I go to the System menu in Gnome and chooses the Administration submenu I can see a menu item called “Services” (“Tjenester” in Danish).
Depends on the distribution you’re using, and starting the service does not imply getting it up and running and configured and does not imply point and click tools for doing so.
Click on the menu item, enter root password (may vary depending on configuration of distribution) and up comes a window with a number of services and “Webserver (Apache2)” (or whatever webserver you have installed as a service) will show up.
If your web server isn’t installed, will it automatically prompt you to install it like Windows will?
And yes, it does get a webserver up and running. Does it get a lot of other things up and running? Nope. Just the webserver. Is it particularly useful? Naah, but neither is the IIS in itself.
Take a look at IIS’ management console, and then take a look at what you think are point and click administration tools on whatever it is you think you are using. It’s such a poor comparison it isn’t even funny.
It takes a lot more but we were only discussing the webserver.
No. Your specific comment was:
You haven’t used Linux for this I take it? Setting up a webserver in Linux is a click’n’point operation and has been so for years.
To set up a web server into something someone can use, and put content on, is a lot more than having some extremely basic graphical way of starting Apache.
Let’s come to a right understanding. Apart from YaST in Suse, and possibly Mandrake, (and they’re not all that great) the state of graphical administration tools in Linux systems is woeful. Simply woeful.
how did you get voted up to 4 for that?
And you’ve obviously never used IIS…
Actually I have used IIS. And I still do when running projects on my PC at College. A bare Apache installation is not particularly useful – the same goes for any webserver. Now run a web application on top of it and the webserver becomes really useful. That includes IIS.
ROFL…since when has setting up Apache been like this? Excuse me but starting a service and actually “setting” up a webserver are two completely different things. To even imply that Apache could be as simple is just plain misleading.
There’s a difference between configuring and setting up. Setting it up so it can run is that simple. Configuring it to use PHP4 and PHP5 side by side takes more work. The same is true for Apache on Windows. Or IIS or whatever.
But starting the Apache service actually does make the webserver run. And that’s all I’m saying (actually it doesn’t take more than 20 seconds to configure Apache and PHP if you know what to edit – in CLI – GUI tools are different).
the day you see a nice GUI raid tool for Linux, hell would of frozen over
EVMS is great, and it’s more than just a RAID tool. It also manages partitioning, logical volumes, filesystems, and clustering–the entire storage stack. It has CLI, ncurses, and GTK interfaces.
The problem is that not everybody knows about these sorts of things, and the distributions don’t always shove them in your face. Linux server management is pretty good, but it could be significantly better. I disagree with your notion that there’s something about Linux that makes it unlikely that GUI management tools will become more pervasive. Linux will get better tools, they will come quickly, and most will be developed by commercial vendors that are pushing Linux servers like crazy. IBM develops EVMS, and I bet there’s more where that came from.
A GUI on a server?
to setup a webserver or shares?
I am really glad with httpd.conf and/or other config files. Once you take the tine to understand them your possibilities are endless and your power is unlimited.
After that you hopefully will understand that GUI are
only slowing you down and underpower you.
Most home user don’t want to take time to understand, nor they want endless possibilities or power. They want a quick and simple webserver that just works. This isn’t aimed at sysadmins running real webservers, this is for home users who have no interest in learning what httpd.conf is, but want to host their own blog and let people see their vacation photos.
Sure you can counter with comments like “lusers who can’t even be bothered to learn how to edit httpd.conf with vi over ssh shouldn’t be running servers” and similar popular statements, but the truth is there is a market for this sort of product and MS is filling it. Linux could easily fill it, but no one has done the work.
Suse and RHEL/Centos provide MANY GUI tools to install/setup webservers or other services.
Example:
http://yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/images/system-config-httpd.gif
Or one can also use webmin.
All this “you can’t setup a webserver without CLI on linux” is nonsense.
Edited 2007-04-29 17:47
Yes many distros have different tools for setting up these sort of things, some better than others. But no distro has this as their focus, and the tools aren’t really unified. It is in most cases an afterthought. If linux wants to compete in this area there needs to be a distro who’s primary focus is easily setting and managing up various servers with sensible defaults.
Suse and RHEL/Centos provide MANY GUI tools to install/setup webservers or other services.
True, and I’ve been a longtime supporter/advocate of SuSE, largely for that reason.
But, what SuSE, RedHat, and even Apple haven’t quite managed, is the packaging with WHS– The Microsoft portal, the tools to automatically configure/administer the *other* machines on your home network, the automatic backups, user management, the file sharing– This is all being done at a level that if you understand the concept of webpages, and file sharing, you can use them.
As for security issues, it’s certainly possible to construct a “secure” Windows server; WHS seems to fit all the requirements: A carefully defined set of services (heavily firewalled), external connectivity is just HTTP (and in theory, limited to the portal system), and best of all, no user-installed applications.
If it bricks, it’s almost certainly going to be a hardware failure.
It *will* however, hurt linux, because now people have the choice of a drop-in server that integrates with their home stuff, and automatically gives them a website, or they can roll their own using some linux distro and hope they can get it all working– while dealing with people who assume if you don’t know the intricacies of httpd.conf and .htaccess, you’re an idiot.
>Sure you can counter with comments like “lusers who
>can’t even be bothered to learn how to edit httpd.conf
>with vi over ssh shouldn’t be running servers” and
>similar popular statements, but the truth is there is a
>market for this sort of product and MS is filling it.
>Linux could easily fill it, but no one has done the
>work.
For home/newbie users there are lots of gui tools that run under linux. Command line is way more powerful since you can use scripting etc. endless pos.
Its also good for people to let them know what they are doing and how stuff works. Esp. with security in mind.
>this is for home users who have no interest in
>learning what httpd.conf is, but want to host their
>own blog and let people see their vacation photos.
Home users are not going to buy a 300 EUR server os package (wich prob. does not their games..) just to show their photos? instead of letting a provider host their photos for 15 EUR wich also links their domain name and/or runs their mail box.
Its also good for people to let them know what they are doing and how stuff works. Esp. with security in mind.
Or you can lock it down tight to make sure they can only do relatively few things and take care of the security aspect from that angle.
Home users are not going to buy a 300 EUR server os package (wich prob. does not their games..) just to show their photos?
Not just to show their photos, no. But to host their files so the whole family can access them, serve up music and videos to their xbox, act as a print server and let them show their photos on the web. I don’t see that as being too hard a sell for a reasonably competent marketer.
You’re arguing the point of WHS – the market for this does not care what they are doing or how it works. As long as it does work. This will sell, marketing + people with too much money will easily make it a successful product
“Sure you can counter with comments like “lusers who can’t even be bothered to learn how to edit httpd.conf with vi over ssh shouldn’t be running servers” and similar popular statements, but the truth is there is a market for this sort of product and MS is filling it.”
Sadly, you’re right, but the problems caused by the missing education (knowledge about server setup, security management, ports, firewalls etc.) will lead to increasing abuse of these home servers. They will be taken over very fast by the usual means (trojans, viruses etc.) and will then be used for illegal actions, such as spamming the Internet or transmitting / storing contents like child porn or instructions for terroristic attacs, maybe. As you might know, this is what “Windows” boxes are used today for, without any notice of their owners.
I cannot follow your argument “market for this”, because there are free web services that offer nearly all the functions you mentioned. The trend would be to go away from these centralized servers and have servers in every home instead, creating new demands for name server and routing services.
Having a look at all regards of computing today, the barrier to be able to do something is lowering step by step. While desktops were available for everyone, servers were not. Now servers are available for everyone. Which results this will lead to… we’ll see.
One point I’d like to mention: Showing asterisks when entering a password on a server that has a certain security level is a “no-go”, instead, nothing should be displayed, but this could lead the (not so educated) user to assume that nothing is entered. Just read this one:
I’m a network administrator at a local school district, and I get some doozies.
Teacher: “My keyboard is broken.”
Me: “What is it doing to make you think it’s broken?”
Teacher: “When I go to type my password it doesn’t type it right. No matter what I type, it’s always a little star.”
Me: “Yes, it is supposed to do that.”
Teacher: “Well, how does it know if I get it right or wrong if it’s always little stars!?”
Me: “It displays the asterisks so no one else can see your password.”
Teacher: “That is stupid. I hate Bill Gates.”
🙂
Source: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_keyboards.shtml
“Linux could easily fill it, but no one has done the work.”
I think there are GUI frontends for server configuration, but they do not reside in a colourful paper box in a local software store.
Sadly, you’re right, but the problems caused by the missing education (knowledge about server setup, security management, ports, firewalls etc.) will lead to increasing abuse of these home servers. They will be taken over very fast by the usual means (trojans, viruses etc.) and will then be used for illegal actions, such as spamming the Internet or transmitting / storing contents like child porn or instructions for terroristic attacs, maybe. As you might know, this is what “Windows” boxes are used today for, without any notice of their owners.
I don’t think these will necessarily cause the same problems. Since the servers will have only very limited uses then all ports can be closed and firewalls can be set up sensibly by default. Two of the more popular attack vectors are email attachments and malicious web pages, non of which should ever be a problem of these home servers. The downside, as it where, with desktops is that people expect them to be able to do everything and anything and thus the security problems.
By the way are you the Doc Pain I hung out with at C8 Montreal? If so I’m Dag from Norway (now Sweden)
Edited 2007-04-30 22:35
“I don’t think these will necessarily cause the same problems. Since the servers will have only very limited uses then all ports can be closed and firewalls can be set up sensibly by default.”
You say it: by default, but as you might know it from the history of “Windows”, its defaults usually are unsafe. If “Windows Home Server” follows this tradition, we will have happy times’n’traffic in the Internet. 🙂
“Two of the more popular attack vectors are email attachments and malicious web pages, non of which should ever be a problem of these home servers.”
As long as they are not remotely controllable mail relays for spam transfers. Mail attachments usually rely on the user opening them (or the mail client auto-opening them), malicious web pages are a challenge to the user’s intelligence.
“The downside, as it where, with desktops is that people expect them to be able to do everything and anything and thus the security problems.”
In Germany, we call this “eierlegende Wollmilchsau”. People are expecting too much, and often they cannot understand why their expectations cannot be fulfilled because they believe in the advertising promises of hardware and software vendors who make them believe in magic. 🙂
“By the way are you the Doc Pain I hung out with at C8 Montreal? If so I’m Dag from Norway (now Sweden)”
Sorry, I’m not, I’ve never been outside Germany until today.
there is always webmin
and for shares, i could have sworn that kde have samba shares integrated so that similar to windows you can just right-click and check properties of a folder to manage shares…
Of course, it never will, and the day you see a nice GUI raid tool for Linux, hell would of frozen over (or Earth to that matter, given it’s only getting hotter).
If you just need basic file serving, have a look at FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org/). It’s all configured via a web interface. Serves files via CIFS, ftp, NFS, AFP, iSCSI target, etc. You can easily setup RAID via the web interface… for many people it is a “plug and play” file server.
It obviously lacks some of the bells and whistles of it’s non-free MS competition, but I can see it meet general media storage and backup needs.
I was just going to mention webmin, sadly removed from Debian/Ubuntu repos because of no maintainer (although there are .debs at webmin.org), and Freenas as alternatives to this, and maybe rsync + rdiff-backup and an LVM module for webmin. As for ACL, you can use them on Linux (google it), if people weren’t aware.
Edited 2007-04-30 05:32
True, but I think it is somewhat negative to say it never will. Linux distributions are going from strength to strength, and hopefully KDE 4 will make shares more easy than they are in KDE 3.5.*.
Try the stuff available at contribs.org.
It’s been there for years (it used to be called SME Server). There are lots of similar linux-based products in the market. I will let you do your own research, but there are lots of them.
Home Server doesn’t look terribly user-friendly. For all intents and purposes it is a repackaged Windows 2003 Server with standard utilities taken out and replacements being thrown in. I don’t know why, but something’s not right about how these utilities look.
And the Longhorn screenshots prominently display MacOSX windows and run in Fusion. Huh? One has to wonder if it’s been done on purpose.
The WHS front end is just about as user friendly as you can get.
Four big buttons. They produce lists of users, disks, shares, and backups. Each list has a very limited number of things you can do: add or change user settings, add or remove disks, add or change share settings, change or remove backups.
Then there is a little button on the far side for some slightly more advanced settings that aren’t frequently used.
It doesn’t get any simpler than that without losing crucial functionality.
Screenshots are taken on a Mac running MS Home Server under paralells, how cunning!
Anyway I like the concept very much, surely Apple must be able to implement a better version (I believe OSX server only needs minor tweaking). Important question, will it accept non Windows clients?
Could be a major development especially if you could create a version that tackles Small Businesses as well.
“Screenshots taken on a Mac running MS Home Server under Paralells”..? Sheesh, how do people come up with such utter crap? They were shot directly off the WHS box using Paintshop Pro, and I can this with 100% confidence as I’m the author of the article.
Yes. In your article. But the screenshots from Longhorn Server Beta 3 appear to be a different matter
Well that other article (done by someone else) is about Windows Server ‘Longhorn’, not Home Server — and my response was to the post which specifically said “Screenshots are taken on a Mac running MS Home Server under Paralells” (sic). That post was wrong. End of story.
Aaaah yes. Seems to me that OP got confused over the screenshots. The screenshots from your article is obviously not from a virtual environment. The post was wrong since the poster has blended two articles with eachother.
Still not a reason for you to come out that hard on the OP
Well, I don’t think I was being all that hard. Someone made a totally incorrect statement about my work. I called that as it was, ie “utter crap”. Once again, end of story.
“””
Someone made a totally incorrect statement about my work. I called that as it was, ie “utter crap”. Once again, end of story.
“””
I know that this may come as a shock to you, but there were 2 articles linked and the OP wasn’t talking about yours, and he never indicated that he was.
I notice that you are new here, but the thing that has come across as “total crap” so far has been your attitude.
Sheesh! Lighten up and stop being so overly sensitive about “your work”.
You were mistaken and overreacted. End of story.
Edited 2007-04-29 15:16
I wasn’t mistaken. Read the post again, where it clearly said screenshots of the home server were taken on a Mac under Parallels.
If my correcting this was an over-reaction, or someone gets in a snoot because I correct it by describing their claim as utter crap, then someone else needs to lighten up and maybe get back to discussing Home Server itself.
OK – so there wasn’t anything meant that the screenshots were taken in VMware Fusion on my MacBook Pro. I don’t have decent enough PC to run Longhorn Server Beta 3. During the installation, there is no way to take a screenshot other than to switch back to the Mac desktop and take a screenshot, which is much quicker than trying to do it any other way.
pac
I’m amused, given their disastrous attempts so far, that Microsoft seems to think that a Home Server will actually work for the vast majority of people out there. Yes, I can see these small Home Server boxes being convenient targets for hacks and mods (apparently they’ll be small, headless etc.), and they will almost certainly get Linux installed on them, but I’m not sure that’s what Microsoft has in mind.
To run a server of any kind you need a solid, stable and working home network, and in an age where the vast majority have major trouble with wireless networks and broadband it’s a big, big ask to get people to fork money out for this and then troubleshoot the thing. I also wouldn’t be keen on the thing sucking my bandwidth allowance away to install automatic updates.
I also have absolutely no idea what Home Server actually does. It’s availability and RAID capabilities are an absolute joke, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to be storing anything on it that is critical in any way. At best you’ve got a LVM or RAID 0 set up, with some RAID 1 mirroring. It’s simply not the basis needed for a 100% available and reliable home system, with the potential to be the basis for a media system as well. I hope flash drives make an entrance soon.
In addition, the way this is actually going will lead to an inevitable trade-off between functionality and the need to keep licensing in check. At the moment it’s a brick with, some pretty interfaces, that stores a few files – absolutely nothing more. To make it actually useful you’d need to put some proper storage and RAID options in there, make it handle all your e-mail and calendaring for you without configuring your workstation, it would need to be a proper multimedia system sharing out your media files and a TV recording device etc. That’s what would make it actually useful for people.
As it is, it won’t handle your e-mails and calendaring centrally because that would be a threat to Exchange, remote access is a problem because of Terminal Services CALs, Windows will never have a RAID and storage subsystem of any note and the DRM question comes into the equation on the question of it being a media device. The latter is the only thing that would make Home Server interesting to people, and the way that people would want and expect to use it would be far removed from the way you’d be allowed to use it.
I have absolutely no idea is the one thing you got right there. WHS is a variation of Windows Server 2003 that runs on the inside of your network. If you want to get frisky you can install whatever you want on it, and use RAID0/1/5 for data storage just like any other Windows Server 2003 box.
I’m trying to pick out the most ridiculous thing you said. I think it was the part where Windows Update sucks away bandwidth to download patches. Gold Star!
WHS is a variation of Windows Server 2003 that runs on the inside of your network.
So what does it do then?
If you want to get frisky you can install whatever you want on it, and use RAID0/1/5 for data storage just like any other Windows Server 2003 box.
How does this help? I repeat: I have absolutely no idea what WHS itself actually does, and neither will the supposed target market for it either ;-).
I think it was the part where Windows Update sucks away bandwidth to download patches. Gold Star!
You get a couple of gold stars for being quite unbelievably clueless, but I wouldn’t expect anything less.
I do believe this thing is called Windows Home Server, and as such, Microsoft would like you to run it in a home on a broadband connection. Many people have some restrictions on their broadband usage (on and off-peak usage, bandwidth limitations etc.), and having some closed, black box server downloading automatic updates whenever it likes (as well as remote access) is just one example of the kinds of unforseen things that no one thinks about here.
Your comment, or lack of it, only serves to highlight how Microsoft and lots of other people have absolutely no clue as to what the issues actually are in running a server within the home. The rest of the comment you conveniently painted over, but the issues are there ;-). People will want it to handle their e-mail and calendaring in a centralised and trouble-free manner and people want to share their media stuff. As it is, WHS is useless.
Edited 2007-04-29 15:44
Let me try to quell your concerns.
WHS stores your movies and music. It backs up your computers so you can recover if they break.
People use web mail. They don’t want an Exchange server. They don’t even know what an Exchange server is.
Single-digit megabytes of patches per year is not a bandwidth problem. If you are concerned about 14.4kbps modem users, have no fear — they can turn automatic updates off.
Let me try to quell your concerns.
I’m not particularly concerned about WHS, because it doesn’t do anything as far as I can see.
WHS stores your movies and music.
I don’t see any way of sharing those films and music out in a useful jukebox kind of way, it doesn’t do what Myth does and it doesn’t do what something like a SlimServer does in streaming your music.
That’s probably because they don’t want it to be a threat to Windows Media Centre or something ;-).
It backs up your computers so you can recover if they break.
People can buy software, cheap external hard drives, USB sticks and even full blown easy to use RAID backup boxes today to do that – and they do.
People use web mail.
WHS is supposed to have remote access, right?
They don’t want an Exchange server. They don’t even know what an Exchange server is.
I didn’t say they should run Exchange. I’m just saying that for WHS to be even moderately useful to them then it should really provide some way to keep easy access of their mails, back them up and give them something more personal and useful to them that web mail can’t provide. It’s just a suggestion for WHS to be moderately useful to someone, because at the moment, it isn’t.
Single-digit megabytes of patches per year is not a bandwidth problem.
Windows updates are not by no means in single digits, and you’d be surprised how bandwidth sapping occurs (the backup would do this as well). WHS just needs to handle this differently than a normal Windows (or even Linux) server and look at the practical issues.
If you are concerned about 14.4kbps modem users, have no fear — they can turn automatic updates off.
This is a fully automated headless server for the home we’re talking about here that should need no set up (or at least a simple step-by-step guide set up).
Edited 2007-04-30 17:44
In addition to everything you noted. I love this part of the “article”.
That’s because Microsoft expects most Windows Home Server users will never see the desktop. In fact, the OEM servers won’t even have ports for a monitor, keyboard or mouse — they’ll be compact ‘headless’ boxes.
Bahahaha. Now exactly what is this home user supposed to do 3 months after their purchase when Windows is completely fried, won’t boot, and needs to be reloaded. Congrats on your new brick. Hope it lets you install UNIX on it over a serial port. Nope, probably doesn’t have one of those either.
“””
Now exactly what is this home user supposed to do 3 months after their purchase when Windows is completely fried, won’t boot, and needs to be reloaded.
“””
Well, then they may not be able to watch “Star Wars”. But the family can still have hours of good clean fun watching “Connection Closed By Foreign Host”. 😉
notice “OEM” – this is targeted at people buying from Dell, HP, etc. So it will have a warranty. So they’ll send it to dell, dell will overnight them a new one. Simple as that.
APC normally trashes Microsoft, so if they’re writing good things about WHS, it *must* be pretty good.
BTW, here’s another WHS article that was released a couple of days ago, that also praises WHS.
Microsoft hits a home run with Windows Home Server
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=244
I note that the usual Microsoft bashers are hoping, wishing, praying, and/or rooting for WHS to be bad. Why? Techno-geeks should root for all products to be good. Why want a product to be bad?
Edited 2007-04-29 15:49
I note that the usual Microsoft bashers are hoping, wishing, praying, and/or rooting for WHS to be bad. Why? Techno-geeks should root for all products to be good. Why want a product to be bad?
Because they have no equivalent alternative.
“Because they have no equivalent alternative.”
I agree, there is no Linux OS infected with DRM/activation/WGA, horrible EULA, and a frightening price. You made a very good point, thanks for highlighting that.
heh, is it just me or does that look like RWX of *nix fame?
No, RWX is read, write, execute. You can also set them individually, like r-x(read and execute), rw-(read and write), rwx(read, write, execute), r–(read only), –x(execute only), -wx(write and execute), and -w-(write only). Also, RWX can only be set differently to the owner, the owner’s group, and everyone else.
im fully aware of what RWX is, and how it works.
i just found it funny given the recent linux ACL requests in the comments here:
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=17788
that microsoft would go for so simple a system of access control on their home server.
but then i keep forgetting that they have a simple and advanced access control mode on XP shares also…
Again, two different markets.
At my job, where I’m trying to maintain file shares in a secure and regulation compliant fashion for multiple departments, I need as much granularity and functionality as I can lay my hands on. Something resembling true rights inheritance would also be nice.
For a home market, however, it’s a much simpler universe, and Read/Write/Execute is sufficient.
that i agree with fully
When Windows Home Server fails a WGA check, and people must call MS to beg for permission to use their own computer, they will be wishing they had used Linux.
When Windows Home Server fails a WGA check, and people must call MS to beg for permission to use their own computer, they will be wishing they had used Linux.
You just don’t get it. This is for a HOME NETWORK. It’s meant to be easy to use and require minimal experience to set up. Linux ain’t gonna fill that need, as it’s currently productized. Not even close.
“You just don’t get it. This is for a HOME NETWORK. It’s meant to be easy to use and require minimal experience to set up. Linux ain’t gonna fill that need, as it’s currently productized. Not even close.”
You don’t think people can install an OS, yet you think they will be using Home Servers? A person can use Linux for a server, without being tormented by MS, and for a reasonable price.
You don’t think people can install an OS, yet you think they will be using Home Servers?
It’s for a niche market. It’s not made for the vast consumer market.
“It’s for a niche market. It’s not made for the vast consumer market.”
I agree, I don’t think many people will be using Windows Home Server either.
“””
It’s for a niche market. It’s not made for the vast consumer market.
“””
Niche market today, perhaps. But expect the ability to make shares available on the network to be restricted or removed in future versions of Windows Home editions.
This will be done in the name of security, of course.
Today, if you and your spouse want separate machines but want to share certain files, you can get two machines and create one or more shares.
In the future, I suspect that you will need two machines plus a WHS.
I believe this is meant to be a drop-in box, which you can manage from any (Vista) computer with bunches of pretty buttons
i will probably try the home server since I really like the 2003 server but I didn’t see if the price was mentioned….it would also be interesting if multiplayer servers will have a validated to work on WHS sticker – so now the family will have to have the knowledge and expireence of a 90’s sys admin to get their enterprise network running – very interesting – a nice opening for those who want to make $$$ supporting families with tech support….
“i will probably try the home server since I really like the 2003 server but I didn’t see if the price was mentioned”
HP is said to be aiming for < 1000USD: http://computershopper.com/shoptalk/2007/04/26/my_love_affair_with_…
I also wouldn’t be surprised if the only way you can get a copy of WHS is by buying a machine with it preinstalled, which will probably be cheaper than building your own machine of comparable quality + cost of a WHS license.