Windows Home Server - RIP

[mark1234]

Anyone care that WHS is officially dead?

http://connecteddigitalworld.com/2012/0 ... r-is-gone/

I thought v1 was a great idea, but never got around to building it into my home environment. With Drive Extender removed from v2 I no longer saw any point in the product so stopping thinking about it. Now I'll never get chance to do anything with it! Like Media Centre, I think it has just been overtaken by masses of cheaper off the shelf products that may not have as many features or flexibility, but don't have the complexity and hassle either.

[gcoupe]

Yes, I care. Just as with WMC, Microsoft had a great idea with WHS. The first version of WHS was a good start, and the Microsoft team had passion and drive, and executive support. When it came to WHS 2011, the team were reorganized into another group in Microsoft, where they became a small fish in a big pond, and they lost their leadership and executive support.

The end was in sight at that point. I'm not surprised in the slightest, but disappointed that Microsoft has dropped the ball yet again.

[bobbob]

Anyone care that WHS is officially dead?

http://connecteddigitalworld.com/2012/0 ... r-is-gone/

I thought v1 was a great idea, but never got around to building it into my home environment. With Drive Extender removed from v2 I no longer saw any point in the product so stopping thinking about it. Now I'll never get chance to do anything with it! Like Media Centre, I think it has just been overtaken by masses of cheaper off the shelf products that may not have as many features or flexibility, but don't have the complexity and hassle either.

i think this is absolutely nail on the head. MS have realised there's no point trying to compete on all these addons so they're concentrating on the OS and Office. i read recently 60% of profits come from MS office and i don't see any proper companies switching from Office any time soon

[adam1991]

i read recently 60% of profits come from MS office and i don't see any proper companies switching from Office any time soon

A couple of years ago these guys went wholesale to the entire Google solution, docs and mail and all:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=RRD+Profile

now, THAT'S a huge company. Color me shocked. I really didn't realize this kind of thing was happening for real in the world.

[bobbob]

a drop in the ocean http://www.dailytech.com/Office+2010+to ... e18360.htm

[mcewinter]

Yes, I care. Just as with WMC, Microsoft had a great idea with WHS. The first version of WHS was a good start, and the Microsoft team had passion and drive, and executive support. When it came to WHS 2011, the team were reorganized into another group in Microsoft, where they became a small fish in a big pond, and they lost their leadership and executive support.

The end was in sight at that point. I'm not surprised in the slightest, but disappointed that Microsoft has dropped the ball yet again.

+1

We got served is now looking at W8 for a home server alternative. That might be the ticket. Everything I like about MS is getting the axe.

[Venom51]

I'm not sure about the uproar over this. They are moving the fuctionality of WHS 2011 into the Essentials version os 2012. You'll just be getting a less neutered version of home server. That's just going by what's been published so far.

[mark1234]

At several times the cost though. Means it's not a "Home" edition.

[STC]

"To The Cloud-iness"

[Venom51]

At several times the cost though. Means it's not a "Home" edition.

The 4 2008 R2 servers I run at home would disagree. It's just not as cheap as it once was..however what else is?

[holidayboy]

At several times the cost though. Means it's not a "Home" edition.

+1

[mark1234]

At several times the cost though. Means it's not a "Home" edition.

The 4 2008 R2 servers I run at home would disagree. It's just not as cheap as it once was..however what else is?

You have to admit that you are not a regular home user with that setup!

[Venom51]

At several times the cost though. Means it's not a "Home" edition.

The 4 2008 R2 servers I run at home would disagree. It's just not as cheap as it once was..however what else is?

You have to admit that you are not a regular home user with that setup!

No...my bathroom schedule is pretty solid...I'm as regular as it gets.

Actually that's why it's usually best for me to stay out of some of the topics as I usually end up be statistically irrelavent. While my stuff is more than most would use at home there are some features of a standard 2008 R2 install that I think would be beneficial to folks once they learned who to setup and manage it. I like having raoming profiles and folder redirection so that the users experience is the same no matter which machine they login to in the house. Having your own on site DNS server makes for a speedier surfing experience and can be used to make it easier to get to the web interfaces of devices on your network. Simple stuff like not having to remember that the access point in the living room is at 192.168.2.whatever and just typing WAP4400L and getting the correct unt is nice.

Plus you have to think along the lines that people, certainly in our enthusiast circles, are becoming a little more savy so why not give them tools that are more powerful to deploy at home? Sure you still need the simplisti usage scenario to garner wide adoption but under that superficial layer the more clever user should have access to the more powerful feature set. I guess my point is while the super simple to use interfaces on devices are nice but in their current form aren't attractive to someone that doesn't want to be limited to the simplified feature set. If they do it well with the essentials version of Server 2012 than perhaps they can attract more of bothtypes user to the product.

[holidayboy]

I agree that there are a lot of features in Windows Server that many home users could get good use out of (I run SBS2011 Standard for both work and home use).

I think that a lot of people would need to wait for a "Windows Server 2012 Essentials Home Edition" with a slightly lower price tag before getting out the old credit card though

[STC]

I much prefer having a domain in my home/work (similar requirements to HB above). All controlled easily by SBS 2011 standard. I started using Small Business Server seven years ago with SBS2003.
It hosts mail for three different companies, about 50 email addresses, with a backup MX service.
Antivirus is centrally controlled using Vipre Business from the server. Makes life easy administering 14 clients. If any hoo-ha occurs with a suspicious file/event I am notified immediately and the client PC disables its' nic, logs off the profile and locks itself until I investigate.

MS have said they are discontinuing Small Business Server which is a concern, but it does look as though Server 2012 standard will carry on performing the role that I need.

I also run a small HP MediaSmart Server 485 that runs Home Server v1 and just does daily backups of all all the important clients and server. This is located in a different building with a gig fibre connection to the main network segment. I also backup very important items to the cloud.

Everything is hands-off set and forget.

The only PC not on my domain is my HTPC, simply due to the fact it does not need to be on it. It performs a daily backup of the O/S to home server. There is no AV installed on it either.

[mark1234]

Wow! I bow to you all.

[Venom51]

Wow! I bow to you all.

Ehh...it's simply just that once you have been in a domain environment and have gotten used to centralized management it's hard to go back.

[asm495]

When they killed Drive Extender I started used a Windows 7 box as my home server. The only thing I missed was the backup facilities. I use DriveBender to replicate what DE used to give me. Plus I could have Media Center too to give one integrated solution.

For me the only feature that Win8 gives me is built-in drive pooling. I'm not sure it will be worth the effort moving over. I am seeing more and more possible replacements for Media Center. Nothing has quite got there yet but I'm in no rush at the moment - what I have works well.

[gcoupe]

At several times the cost though. Means it's not a "Home" edition.

Er, "several times"? - it's practically an order of magnitude! $425 versus $40.

No way I can possibly justify that cost to the financial controller at home...

Besides, even if I could, I see that Brian Binnerup has said that there will be no version of MyMovies for WSE 2012; he's looking at Windows 8 as the server.

Really, all Windows 8 needs is someone developing an App that replicates the client PC backup functionality present in WHS, while addressing its limitation (it can’t backup PCs that use EFI/GPT technology). There’s a gap in the market opening up – let’s hope someone will fill it…

[mark1234]

At several times the cost though. Means it's not a "Home" edition.

Er, "several times"? - it's practically an order of magnitude! $425 versus $40.

No way I can possibly justify that cost to the financial controller at home...

Then vote with your wallet and keep hold of your money. Your existing version of WHS isn't going to stop working suddenly.