Hands-on with Windows Home Server, HP MediaSmart Server

We stopped by Microsoft's booth earlier to actually get our hands on HP's Media Smart Server running Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Home Server. Since Home Server runs headless, you'll use client software (accessible by clicking on the little "home" icon in the system tray above) to control the box. Check out our list of WHS features before checking out our gallery of configuration screens.

Hands-on with Windows Home Server, HP MediaSmart Server

[KnightmareCS @ Jan 11th 2007 1:38AM]

Nice. This could come in handy. Could this stream to the 360?

[Shawn O @ Jan 11th 2007 1:56AM]

Can you please update your list of WHS features page? According to an interview that Paul Thurrott did with the WHS product manager Todd Headrick some of your facts are wrong.

- "Units are headless and embedded only -- you cannot buy WHS and put it on an old PC."

Incorrect, you can get WHS as a "grey market" package similar to how you used to buy MCE and you can install it on any PC you wish to use as your WHS.

KnightmareCS: Yes, it will be able to stream to an XBox 360.

[Veritas II @ Jan 11th 2007 6:05AM]

Will this stream non-WMV videos? I have quite a few I'd love to watch on the 360.

[Matt @ Jan 11th 2007 2:50AM]

You know, for being a gadget blog you guys always manage to take the most awful and blurry pictures of everything you showcase. Buy a decent camera and don't use the craptacular one on some shitty cell phone if you're going to plan on posting them. I could barely make sense of half of those pictures, because the photos were all close up, blurry, and shot at weird angles. I am sure Weblogs, Inc. can afford to equip their reporters with atleast moderatly priced point-and-shoot cameras of good quality with all the money they are making off of advertising.

[Simon @ Jan 11th 2007 8:55AM]

Its called 'macro' and it comes on $AU150 cameras too

[tchiseen @ Jan 11th 2007 3:19AM]

matt - you'd be surprised how cheap the newsmedia is


from what I can see about this whole M$ setup is that it's utter crap. Can someone explain to me why you couldn't put together your own server system, running your OS of choice and not have all of the useful functions that this M$ crap touts? Why on earth would you want a server that you couldn't actually access physically? The whole setup looks like trouble to me. It looks like if you were to take it home and try and use it, all you'd get would be errors. they've used a lot of gradients for their eye candy but i can just sense it's going to be utter junk.

[Keaton @ Jan 11th 2007 3:51AM]

One more thing....

@tchiseen above... Having a headless unit isn't a bad thing... Its actually very useful. You have all the control you would if the computer had its own dedicated monitor, keyboard, etc. but without the bulk just sitting there unused. I don't know what protocol it uses to accomplish this, but I am assume it would be over a RDP (remote desktop protocol) and if it is, it will be the same as having a computer with its own dedicated monitor, blah, blah, blah....

[portwineboy @ Jan 11th 2007 8:46AM]

Why would I want a server I couldn't access physically? Are you serious? I run an SGI Origin 350/IRIX system and it's certainly the most reliable device in my data center.

[Keaton @ Jan 11th 2007 3:42AM]

Wow... It looks like my old PIII 866 running Window Server 2003 with the Vista look and an interface for noobs... Seriously... My server does everything that thing does and more. The only difference is my machine took a little brain power to set-up... At least I know I have a brain...

All I want to know is when Windows Server Longhorn coming out? Is it going to be as rock solid as Server 2003? In my opinion Server 2003 is the best product that Windows has ever came out with. It could be better, but for Windows it was quite a leap... Longhorn better be even more amazing... The only way I see this happening is if the OS is virtualized... This would solve many of the problems that we face today. Come on Windows! Give us IT professionals something that is bomb-proof! We are waiting!

[June Klein @ Jan 20th 2007 2:53AM]

I agree, this concept can work very well. We have had no problems with headless servers like our Instagate EX2 for firewall, email, webhosting, intranet. We also use some headless in our evolving electronic trading environments. www.EvolutionOfTrading.com

[helio9000 @ Jan 11th 2007 4:07AM]

>Can someone explain to me why you couldn't put together your own server system,

If you could put together your own server this product probably isn't for you. Why is that so hard to understand? This is for a guy like my dad who has a media center pc with hundreds of hours of recorded tv that needs to go somewhere. It seems straightforward enough that he could set it up and keep me out the loop. That would be nice. Ain't no way I'm going to get him to SSH into is own homebrew.

>Why on earth would you want a server that you couldn't actually access physically?

Is this a serious question? You can access it physically - you just don't need and should never require a monitor. If you seriously don't understand why a headless server is so great (linux, X Server whatever) you don't understand servers at all.

[Frank @ Jan 11th 2007 9:01AM]

I can't wait!!!

Hmmm...XBOX Premium, XBOX Live, XBOX IPTV, Vista Premium, Windows HOME server...

MICROSOFT do you have a direct deposit option??

I just want to give you all my money.

[smithsa @ Jan 11th 2007 9:40AM]

One thing that I'd love to know about this box is how they're doing security for remote access. From the pictures/video/info I've seen, they're using SSL. Seeing that this is a Microsoft product, people will jump all over it if not properly secured.

My main question is where is the SSL certificate coming from to do the security. I've heard third hand that this is a self-signed cert, which in my opinion is a huge mistake to be giving to average users. What makes this worse is that IE7 (or any of the other newer browsers) specifically does not play well with self-signed certs, and will teach everyone really really bad habits.

Does anyone have any more information about how this device does SSL for remote access? I'd love to see some pictures of the cert that is being used when you access a device remotely. Anyone???

[Jonathan Sundy @ Jan 11th 2007 11:37AM]

The big question for me, is whether it allows remote backup.

My family is spread out. I just moved out, 4 hours from home, little sister is at college, and dad of course is at home with only his laptop in the house. No one technically would need one for themselves (except maybe me) but as a family it would be incredibly useful.

So the big question... remote backup, can it?

[Dean C @ Jan 11th 2007 3:07PM]

Does this really stream to the X360? From what I have read it is a file server product without MCE capabilities. I thought it had to be linked to WinMCE to stream video?

It would be nice to see some actual literature from MS on the OEM specs for this. I haven't found anything on MSDN or Technet yet.

[Mike Botros @ Jan 11th 2007 3:16PM]

It doesn't have windows media center capabilities, but it does have Windows Media Connect. The XBOX360 is capable of connecting via both methods. So you can stream to the 360.