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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 6:47 pm
by Vince
Ordered the 120 day eval of this sortware. Been reading really good things about it for the less technical users. Even more technical users that have been playing with the software have praised how easy it is to completely restore your PC from a backup on the server simply booting from a CD and picking your PC and from which date you want to restore it.
Built a cheap AMD PC for it. $20 case and power supply. $60 mo-bo w/ AMD Athlon 64 processor. Spent more on HD (500 mb SATA for about $160) than on the rest of it. If I decide I want to keep it I'll buy a full OEM copy. I'm finding those for about $160 right now, but that's already down $20 from when I first started looking at WHS when it first came out.
My guess is there's nothing here that those of us here couldn't do without (do another way), but for those of us that have to support family, especially family in another city or state, it may be worth it for them to invest in it.
Supposed to be able to remotely control XP Pro and Vista machines through it.
I'll keep you posted.
Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:02 am
by Vince
Another little bonus for supporting family in another city. It allows remote access to PC's to XP (non home edition) and Vista machines if you turn it on under your Windows settings.
Logged into my MCE desktop from my sister's house today to try it.
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:46 pm
by TheCatt
Do not use with certain software.
When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server. Several people have reported issues after they have used the following programs to save files to their home servers:
• Windows Vista Photo Gallery
• Windows Live Photo Gallery
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
• Microsoft Money 2007
• SyncToy 2.0 Beta
Additionally, there have been customer reports of issues with Torrent applications, with Intuit Quicken, and with QuickBooks program files. Our support team is currently trying to reproduce these issues in our labs.
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:23 pm
by GORDON
Wow, straight from the horse's mouth.
That bug was filed December 20... and since no one works this time of year, no fix date is estimated, I bet.
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 7:51 pm
by Vince
TheCatt wrote:Do not use with certain software.
When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server. Several people have reported issues after they have used the following programs to save files to their home servers:
• Windows Vista Photo Gallery
• Windows Live Photo Gallery
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
• Microsoft Money 2007
• SyncToy 2.0 Beta
Additionally, there have been customer reports of issues with Torrent applications, with Intuit Quicken, and with QuickBooks program files. Our support team is currently trying to reproduce these issues in our labs.
Yeah, I'd heard there were some corruption problems when certain files were accessed directly from the server. There's no excuse for the number of MS titles that it impacts.
I've been lurking on the MS WHS forum and I have to give MS credit on one thing, they're genuinely interested in getting any issues resolved. Even though the OEM version is "as is", if there's a design issue that pops up they're always asking posters if they can contact them directly to get specifics, etc.
Doesn't excuse the level of data corruption within their own product line, though.
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 1:29 pm
by Malcolm
I'm sure they're interested in getting bugs resolved. I'm interested in a freezer full of booze. I'm not interested, however, in the workload in between those two states.
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:14 pm
by Vince
Okay, the problem isn't as obvious as the KB articles makes it sound. From what I can tell it usually happens when people are accessing data from an application while a large file transfer is happening in the background.
As I read this I remembered years back in a previous job where we had people trying to store their Outlook PST files on their networked folder. Then when the network would hiccup during a write to the file they ended up with a 1-2 GB brick sitting on the server. We had to tell people the app just wasn't designed with the necessary checks needed for it to be a network application and they needed to save the PST to their local drive and copy it to the share at the end of the day if they wanted it backed up.
Or keep using it as they're using it and stop bitching when it blows up.
Actually, we ended up setting up synch folders for those people.
Sounds like that sort of thing is still an issue.
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:49 pm
by GORDON
Vince wrote:Okay,
the problem isn't as obvious as the KB articles makes it sound. From what I can tell it usually happens when people are accessing data from an application while a large file transfer is happening in the background.
As I read this I remembered years back in a previous job where we had people trying to store their Outlook PST files on their networked folder. Then when the network would hiccup during a write to the file they ended up with a 1-2 GB brick sitting on the server. We had to tell people the app just wasn't designed with the necessary checks needed for it to be a network application and they needed to save the PST to their local drive and copy it to the share at the end of the day if they wanted it backed up.
Or keep using it as they're using it and stop bitching when it blows up.
Actually, we ended up setting up synch folders for those people.
Sounds like that sort of thing is still an issue.
Was that an Outlook 2000 issue?
Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:29 am
by Vince
GORDON wrote:Vince wrote:Okay,
the problem isn't as obvious as the KB articles makes it sound. From what I can tell it usually happens when people are accessing data from an application while a large file transfer is happening in the background.
As I read this I remembered years back in a previous job where we had people trying to store their Outlook PST files on their networked folder. Then when the network would hiccup during a write to the file they ended up with a 1-2 GB brick sitting on the server. We had to tell people the app just wasn't designed with the necessary checks needed for it to be a network application and they needed to save the PST to their local drive and copy it to the share at the end of the day if they wanted it backed up.
Or keep using it as they're using it and stop bitching when it blows up.
Actually, we ended up setting up synch folders for those people.
Sounds like that sort of thing is still an issue.
Was that an Outlook 2000 issue?
Yup yup