Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 beta adds Windows 7 conveniences
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 17th 2009 1:51PM
posted July 17th 2009 1:51PM
It wasn't too hard to see this one coming, but Microsoft has now officially rolled out the beta version of Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 which, among other things, brings with it a slew of new features that tie into Windows 7. That includes support for full image backup of Windows 7 PCs, Windows 7 libraries support for shared media folders, built-in Windows Search 4, and a number of Windows Media Center enhancements, as well as "better support for netbook computers," although Microsoft doesn't seem to have elaborated too much on that. No word on a release date for the non-beta version just yet, but Microsoft is apparently hoping to get it out in advance of Windows 7 -- and, yes, it will be a free update for current Windows Home Server users.
[Via The Windows Blog]
[Via The Windows Blog]
FINALLY!!!
I'm currently using Windows Home Server Professional Power Pack 3 Beta Windows 7 XP Advanced Release Candidate Premium Vista Media Center Windows Mario 64bit Ultra and it's the best Windows yet!
badass...
@turtlesoup
Sucks to be you. I've got the iDevice. Damned if I know what it does, as it lacks buttons, a screen, I/O, or any kind of labelling, but it's made of shiny metal and considering how much it cost it must be superior in every way.
The upgrade looks pretty good. Looks like it's finally time to pull the trigger and buy myself a home server. A coworker has one and swears by it.
Hmmm, cool - tv recording upgrade allows you to directly transcode recorded tv to Zune compatible formats & resolutions. Wonder if it'll support over the air HD tv recording for the zune HD?
Do it!
I recently did and it's really great, i'm no longer tied to having my data on a big clunky desktop that needs to be running all the time, hooked up to kbd/monitor, etc. it sits in the corner, backs stuff up and serves up data. only 44 watts running. (my desktop pc is 100-140 watts, granted it's old).
Anywya get the HP MediaSmart version, they've added a lot of nice "special sauce" features on top of WHS, like TwonkyMedia server, iTunes server, time machine compatibility, etc. Also its really nice hardware.
I kinda wonder what the netbook enchancements are. I don't really see how a netbook could benefit from a server, unless maybe you were streaming something to it since local storage is probably a bit limited.
The netbook enhancements refers to the fact that WHS Connector now supports resolutions of 1024x600, in the past you couldn't see the whole Connector at netbook resolutions.
"Windows Home Server" link is broken =[
Has MS added Windows Media Center to this yet so we can have a central Server/DVR instead of recording TV shows to another PC that had other uses?
Frankly if this would record TV shows instead of my other desktop, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
No, but it does allow you to store your recorded shows on the server in a RecordedTV folder that can be played by any attached MC box or extender attached to another MC box. Then there are free add-ons that you can use to pool the recorded shows from any boxes on the network.
You won't see MC integration in WHS until you get the next retail release of WHS I suspect. That's when it will move to the Server 2008 code base that's shared with Vista/7.
Its rumoured to be coming in Windows Home Server 2, which is due next year sometime. I hope so anyway, I'd love to have multiple MCE boxes (Extenders are very limiting :\) and then have the Windows Home Server running multiple tuners to power it all + store the tv shows / movies.
Sounds good to me. Gotta say I love the Acer Easystore H340 as backup/media server. Makes life so much easier (and quiet) when you don't have 4 HDs sitting in your desktop.
So does it finally have GPT support?
Will be interesting to see how this turns out, but I'm confused by the "support for full image backup of Windows 7 PCs" part... doesn't WHS already do that?
I was a bit lost as well. I've been backing up my W7 HTPC just fine.
Not familiar with how it worked with Vista, but does it maybe create a WIM image backup? Or maybe even a VHD formated backup that you could use to boot directly to if needed.
It's been buggy. Some people (like myself) receive non-stop errors and can't backup their Win7 machine. This releases is supposed to fix that.
It bluescreens the Win7 computer a lot.
Mmmm... I need to get me a home server.
After I had a hard disk fail on a laptop and was able to restore it as if nothing happened because of my WHS, I've never questioned the investment.
I just wish you could restore a computer wirelessly. I'd hate to have to drag one of my desktops and a monitor to the server to restore it.
This is one of the best pieces of tech MS has released in a while. I really like the easy-2-use interface and all the features and add-in modules you can get. The homeserver.com access is pretty nice too. I installed a DNS, and DHCP server and it is pretty much running my LAN for me, handling Windows backups, managing shares and users and heading up security (except for my smoothwall).
It is funny how the better things MS does are the ones they tend to ignore... Marketing this tech in louder ways would be a benefit to them in my opinion, but very few home users even knows that it exists. Total fumble MS!!!
WHS is really one of the solid/useful products Microsoft has released outside of it's OS. I really couldn't live without it anymore.
I installed it .. Cant say it seems all that much different , but seems a tad bit quicker .. One thing to note is the Version # will still say PP2 but the version #'s below will change ... so maybe next time i should read the release notes first : )
I've had an HP Home Server since it first came out and this is my opinion of the device.
Pro's
It is functional.
It is relatively easy to add hard drives to.
Con's
It is dog slow. 8 - 9 MB/s transfer speeds across a local network. I've found only 12 MB/s transfer speed successes in ideal Cat6 environments.
Difficult to upgrade memory or CPU. Doable, but time consuming.
New features are added but old hardware is ignored. There are already features that have been added to the server that aren't supported.
My recommendation? Build your own. I went with HP because I wanted something nice, neat and small and didn't have the time or money to build it into a micro-ATX.
I'm moving some large movie files right now onto my WHS over a 1 gigabit network and am getting 23MB/sec
I get no issues with network transfers. However local transfers when remoted in are slow. This is because WHS puts priority on data integrity, not speed of transfer. If they didn't, the Drive Extender tech that allows any number of drives to act as one would be much riskier.
Avatar, that's impressive. What is your setup? HP WHS? What router and NIC on your PC? I would really like to duplicate your configuration.
Sweet.
sweet
Default internet streaming and drive mapping please!
does windows home server have any "domain" support or a version of a domain that lets it control those kinds of things?
"Active Directory - You may not use the server
software as a domain controller or otherwise make
use of DCPromo.exe. You also may not join the
server software to any Active Directory domain."
- Windows Home Server EULA
It makes sense from their perspective; why have WHS compete with Windows Server 2008? That and domains are more of a corporate tool while home users have workroups.
Sweet!
Building a Home Server was one of the most fun projects I've ever done, and I cannot strongly recommend them enough. Hopefully this fixes the 7 Restore buf where if you switch to a drive that doesn't have the 100MB system reserved partition you can't restore.
I would still like to see a roaming profile feature where any user in the home can log on to any computer in the home and pull up his/her desktop, documents, favorites, etc... I think that would be a wonderful feature for households with the traditional 2.2 children. If Johnny is on the gaming computer where Sara previously did her homework, Sara can simply log on to one of the other computers and have all her stuff.
It wouldn't necessarily have to have full AD Roaming profiles. A connector installed on the desktop PCs that call up customized settings such as icons, favorites, email, documents, etc.. when the user is logged on can't possibly be that hard to do. With network and WiFi speeds the way they are, streaming music, videos and working on documents stored centrally on the server can't be all that hard.
WTF? Win 7 can't be functioned as a server?
Hopefully the improved netbook support means that the client restore software will allow booting from an external USB optical drive.
Roaming profiles what would you need that for as long as you are running windows vista or windows 7 you can port all the users documents folders to the shared folders on the server and when they log on to any computer the files are always there just like when you only have them on one computer