Windows Home Server Promotional Site

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.stopdigitalamnesia.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.stopdigitalamnesia.com/</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/dmt/2007/stop-digital-amnesia-jan17.jpg" /><br /><br />I tend not to think very highly of most marketing efforts from Microsoft, because they lack appeal to consumers, but I have to hand it to them: their "Stop Digital Amnesia" campaign is <a href="http://www.stopdigitalamnesia.com/">funny, clever, and effective</a>. I got a little hands on time with the Windows Home Server product, and the HP hardware. What I saw impressed me (there's an interview I did with a product team member coming up). To date, most of the NAS products I've seen have had very weak software implementations. The combination of the Windows Home Server software, and the <a href="http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2007/ces/ds_de_mediasmartserver.pdf">impressive hardware from the likes of HP</a> (1.8 Ghz Sempron CPU, gigabit Ethernet, four drive bays for expansion) will make for a great product. I'm hoping that it lives up to the expectations I have for it. ;-)

[mcsouth]

I will admit to being "curious" about this offering, in the sense that I have wanted to set up a dedicated server at home for some time now, for exactly the reasons that have been mentioned around this product:
- make my music, video and photo libraries available throughout the household
- provide data backup capabilities for the other PC's in the household

I have looked at NAS products, but always found something lacking, either in features or pricing. I've considered trying to take our older family computer, and set it up as a server, perhaps running some Linux distro, but just haven't made the time to figure out how to do it right.

On top of that, our home "network" really isn't. Several times, I have made the rounds of all the PC's in the house with my WinXP Pro disc, using the networking wizard to get the network set up and running so that all the computers could see each other. Without fail, within a few months, something seems to happen that dissolves the network, and we're back to several PC's sharing a router, but not each other. Maybe this is partly due to the "mixed" network - a Win98SE PC, some XP home PC's, and some XP Pro PC's maybe don't like playing together, or maybe because other PC's (like my work laptop) frequently jump on the router for internet access, but I've given up trying to get the network to stick for now. Unfortunately, that reduces the potential for an NAS product for me.

I have to admit that I'm hoping this is something that may work easier and more reliably in the Vista products - I see the Home Server product as possibly being an indication of that - that may be one reason to consider updating to Vista after all.

[Jason Dunn]

Maybe this is partly due to the "mixed" network - a Win98SE PC, some XP home PC's, and some XP Pro PC's maybe don't like playing together, or maybe because other PC's (like my work laptop) frequently jump on the router for internet access, but I've given up trying to get the network to stick for now.

It's been years since I've dealt with a 98 SE PC, but while there's no technical reason it shouldn't work, I have to figure that's factoring in...there's no reason why Windows XP machines shouldn't work perfectly on a network. Have you considered it might be your router? With XP, it's a matter of changing the network name to be the same on all machines, rebooting, and bam...that's it.

Vista really enhances networking speed - I'm amazed at how faster it is than XP to populate the devices on the network, allow me to dig into folders, etc.