Introducing Microsoft's new Windows Home Server
There is no longer any doubt - this trip is charmed. Qantas upgraded me to Business Class again for the international leg of my flight between Los Angeles and Melbourne (with a stopover in Auckland). I have about 11 hours on the plane before hitting Auckland and thanks to Qantas Skybed's laptop power facilities I don't have to worry about my Ferrari's battery going flat and can get as much work done as I want.
The gentleman taking care of me on my flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne is Simon and he is doing a marvellous job. The power supply in my original seating was faulty so Simon went to the effort of organising a reset to see if things resolved, and when that didn’t work he tested other power points to make sure they worked before helping me move to another seat while I am working. I must admit, I had fun showing off my Ferrari 5000 and Windows Vista. Its great fun to watch a person’s reaction when they first see the full glass effect in Windows Vista. How I wish Dreamscene was on this system – THAT would have blown everybody’s socks off.
Anyway, the hot topic from the Microsoft announcements in my corner of the computer world is the new Windows Home Server. People seem to be in two camps. They either think it will be a smash hit, or that it will crash and burn. I suspect that those who think it will crash and burn are looking at it from the limited perspective that "servers" are for "business" and that therefore "home users" aren't going to want a server.
If Windows Home Server is going to succeed in the marketplace then we will need to help people see past the business atmosphere around the word "server" and help them see the benefits that the product will bring to them.
Why will a home user want Windows Home Server?
Digital photos have long since overtaken traditional film cameras, with many people storing their photos and other media on stand alone PCs. A big selling point for Windows Home Server is easy file sharing.
Bill Gates says:
“As computers and digital media become more and more central to family life, we need better ways to organize, share and protect digital content and information at home. Windows Home Server makes it easy for families to save, protect and access digital memories and experiences so they can focus on using technology to organize their day-to-day lives, explore their interests and share their memories with the people they care about.”
Steven VanRoekel, senior director of the Windows Server Solutions Group at Microsoft Corp says:
"The prevalence of digital cameras, digital video recorders, MP3 players and other devices is creating massive quantities of information that is stored in these “islands” of data around the home. Usually, the person who takes the picture, downloads the music, et cetera, has that information stored on their PC, and if the hard drive fails or something bad happens, that information is effectively lost. Windows Home Server and the HP Media Smart Server will help families with two or more PCs in the home connect those islands, providing a central place where they can easily store, access and share that information."
File sharing is not the only selling point for Windows Home Server. WHS will also automatically back up the family’s data. By way of example Steven says “if a parent or sibling accidentally deletes an important file or document, or a selection of photos of the newborn, customers will be able to easily recover those materials by accessing the most recent backed up file containing the original document or group of photos.”
Addressing the fear of the unknown
Traditionally servers have not been anything like home computers. They’re complicated. Training has been needed. You can’t go to the local computer store and buy one off the shelf. Small businesses who do not have on site technical support have either coped as well as they can, or hired external help. When we look at things from that perspective we can understand why some believe that home users will be frightened away from Windows Home Server. That being said, we need to get away from the idea that a “server” must be difficult to manage. Again I will quote Steven:
“… customers will basically take the HP MediaSmart Server unit out of its box, plug-in two cables - the power cable and a network cable that connects to a home router or hub next to the cable or DSL modem - and the unit will basically be up and running. Each copy of Windows Home Server will include a CD-ROM, which a customer will run from the existing PCs in their house to make it aware of Windows Home Server. The CD-ROM will run a wizard program that asks a few very easy questions like “What is your name?” and “What password do you want to use?” and different information about family members so it can establish who belongs on the network.”
Protecting the network
Some people that I know have an irritating habit. They tend to turn off antivirus and antimalware programs, and ignore prompts to update because they can’t be bothered or it gets in the way of what they want to do. If you don’t have a server in your home then you pretty much have to turn on every computer in the house and check their health by hand. Windows Home Server addresses this problem by alerting the home administrator when virus protection has been turned off on a computer, or when Windows Updates have not been installed, or a machine has not been backed up after a certain number of days, telling the household administrator what actions to take.
What happens when things go wrong?
There is not much that is worse for those of us that fight the good fight against malware, spyware and viruses than being faced with a machine that is badly infected with malware when there are no backups and the computer owner is inexperienced and afraid to reformat their system. If, God forbid, a computer on your home network is infected with malware or spyware, or develops other problems Windows Home Server will allow an administrator to restore any PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista to a previous point in time by popping in a disk and telling Windows Home Server to take that computer back to a particular day. The administrator will also be able to do a complete restore of a networked PC and recover individual files and folders from any existing backups of their home PCs.
How will it look?
Products based on Windows Home Server are not going to be the typical, boring, server room form factor where function is more important than good looks. For example, HP have released images of an HP MediaSmart Server.
Who would find Windows Home Server useful?
Do you have more than one computer at home? Do you have lots of files that you want to preserve? Do you back up your data to external hard drives? Do you want to be able to easily restore a computer if things go wrong? Do you want to share files between multiple computers and access your computer when you are not at home? Do you want to be able to recover files that have been accidentally deleted? If so, you may like to have a look at Windows Home Server.