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Windows Home Server Blog

"Your guide to all things Home Server"
Answering some of the questions from the "beta" program

Beta Software - The home server team has to remind our beta testing community from time to time that Windows Home Server is beta software and during your beta testing you should not be using your home server as the only place to store your important photos, files, etc.  We get e-mails and see forum posts from time to time that sounds like a few people are 100% reliant on our beta software for storing their collections of digital photos...directly from the Reviewer's Guide - "Ensure your important, non-replaceable files are stored and/or backed up separately." 

Windows Home Server Console  - The home server is meant to be a "headless" device.  We have asked our beta participants to install the home server software and then unplug the monitor, mouse and keyboard.  After installing the Windows Home Server Connector software on 1 or more of your home computers, you can configure and setup your home server using the Windows Home Server Console application from any of your home PCs.  We know that people are using the Windows Home Server Console application by having a monitor, mouse and keyboard plugged into their home servers ...but we would prefer them to use the console application from their home computers.

Public Roadmap - People are always asking us to share our plans for a new build, the next release, and what features/functionality we expect to see in the product 3 years from now.  What new features are coming?  When are they coming?  etc.  We listen, read, discuss, analyze and track all of the feedback we receive from our many channels (hardware partners, software partners, beta testers, MVPs, MS insiders, MS employees, etc. etc.) and we prioritize it into a variety of buckets depending on how much time something will take to implement.  We are a very customer driven team, and the best way to help us prioritize decisions is by submitting bugs and feature requests through our Connect site and voting and ranking them as a community.  And try to search for an existing bug and/or feature request prior to posting a new one !

Users, Home Computers, Cost - There is always the age-old question - how much will it cost?  Windows Home Server is designed to support 10 users (plus there is a Guest account) and you will also be able to install the Windows Home Server Connector software on up to 10 home computers.  At this time, there are no plans for CALs (Client Access Licenses) for users and home computers, so when you buy a solution powered by Windows Home Server you will be able to use it up to these limits.   We are still finalizing the pricing for the software and I can't tell you what our current thoughts are because everybody will be mad if they change ... and more importantly - we have to follow a few well defined processes at Microsoft on how everybody gets notified about stuff like pricing.

The Windows Home Server team loves all of the questions and passion about this product that we read about everyday in the Windows Home Server forums, on the Connect site, in various newsgroups, and other people's blogs.  Please try to understand, that we want to answer every single question, but at times some of the questions that are being asked - can't be answered just yet for a variety of reasons that sometimes are hard to explain.   

A list of other commonly asked questions and answers are up on the Microsoft Windows Home Server web page

t.

Building Add-ins

How do you build Add-ins? Awfully hard for me to say. That's kind of like asking how you should build a Windows application. Oh, wait, it's exactly like asking how you should build a Windows application.

However, I can provide some general guidelines for developing Windows Home Server Add-ins:

  • Call them Add-ins. That's what we call them.
  • If your code currently installs and runs on Windows Server 2003 it will probably install and run on Widows Home Server.
  • If your code currently installs and runs on Windows XP or Windows Vista, but does NOT currently install and run on Windows Server 2003 you'll probably have 3 general areas to work on:
    • Your installer. Check if you are running on Windows Home Server version information using GetVersionEx() and looking for VER_SUITE_WH_SERVER. Also understand the Add-in manager and to craft MSI file that work with it.
    • Your code as a service. There's no desktop session you can run under on Windows Home Server. Your long running code must be installed as service using the standard Windows service APIs (or it can run under the context of IIS of course).
    • Testing against Windows Home Server. There are differences in the Windows API between Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2003. They are relatively minor, but they do crop up and the best way to identify these is to make sure you do a full test pass.
  • If you are developing something new, don't get hung up on the fact that Windows Home Server is still in beta and our SDK might change slightly before we ship. Just get started solving the really hard problems on your dev machine. All the really important APIs and services are all there (repeat to yourself "Under the covers it's practically W2K3").
  • The Home Server Console is designed to be an infrequently used application. It is intended to be used by one individual in the household (whoever the sucker was who signed up for helping everyone else) for infrequent configuration tasks. We call this person Jeff (we used to call him Peter but for reasons I will not get into here we had to change...don't ask).  It would be a mistake to implement UI in the admin console that you expect Jeff's family members to access.  Instead, build client-side UI for them.
  • Be seriously thoughtful about the implications your design and code can have on security. We have worked very hard to ensure that Windows Home Server is secure by default. You need to do the same thing.
  • Use the Windows Home Server forums to share your experiences and to get assistance.

What should you build? I can't really answer that directly. But I can tell you to think generally about it using the generic definition of home server:

"A home server is an always available smart node on the home network dedicated to providing services to other nodes on the home network and the Internet."

Relative to this, Windows Home Server provides you with:

  • A stable platform for services in the house that need to be "always available".
  • A built-in set of enterprise-class infrastructure services such as IIS.
  • A rich, well documented, and widely used API (the Windows API) for building Add-ins.
  • A broad ecosystem of already existing tools and technologies that can help you build Add-ins (e.g. everything ranging from PowerShell, to Visual Studio Express, to Ruby on Rails).

Beyond that, I'm confident the community will have no trouble suggesting actual problems to solve and solutions to create. In fact over on http://www.onemanshouting.com/, Rick has a nice post on this. Dan Fernandez blogged about it a while ago, and I'm sure he'll post something new now that the SDK is out. And if you are still out of ideas, check out the suggestions section of the Windows Home Server forum.

So what are you waiting for? Go bang out some code already!

-cek

Developers, Developers, Developers

Today we are announcing the availability of the Windows Home Server SDK. You can access it here.

As I stated in my Channel 9 video interview (and in this post) in January, enabling developers to build on Windows Home Server is an important goal for us. We include all sorts of developers in our definition, including pros doing it to make a living, hobbyists doing it for others just for the gratification, and makers who just do it for themselves.

I personally have fit into all three categories. I obviously build software professionally here at Microsoft (although my team would laugh if I were to suggest that I actually write code anymore), but I did write software professionally in the past. Over the years, I've built many freeware and shareware packages for things relating to making printing easier in Windows, to integrating Windows Media Center Edition into an all-house control system.  I'm constantly dinking with hardware & software projects that are useful (or not) only to me. My office and workshop are littered with evidence of this, much to my family's chagrin.

My first 9 years at Microsoft was spent focused on developers. I started as a support engineer supporting the Windows 2x and 3.0 SDKs and DDKs. I was a developer evangelist. I designed and explained and got all religious about COM, OLE, and ActiveX. And so on. Made some mistakes. Learned a ton. So I get it.

Which is why I pushed so hard from day one that one of the fundamental tenets of Windows Home Server was it would be a platform for developers to build on.

In software development (there goes Charlie pretending he's Joel on Software again) there tend to be widely held beliefs, or truisms. I've written about some of them before here. One truism is when building a v1 product you have to decide between being a platform and a solution. You can't focus on both and be successful. I almost completely believe that.

The original vision document for Windows Home Server (back when the project was codenamed Quattro) made the following statement:

"Quattro" is not a platform. We are a solution. That said, there will be areas where 3rd party extensibility will be important and where we will do specific things to enable 3rd parties. This will likely be limited to our administration Ux.

Beyond that we will rely on the broad platform that Windows provides beneath our solution.

This told the team what to focus on: Build a solution for the problems our end-user customers have, do a few things to make sure the most important extensibility points are addressed, and let 3rd parties innovate deeply by using the rich, underlying Windows platform.

But, the reality is, 99% of what developers want to build on top of Windows Home Server will be done using the rest of the MSDN documentation. Our little set of APIs let you integrate your Add-in into the Home Server Console and interact with some of the elements behind the solutions we provide. But all the interesting work that great Windows Home Server Add-ins will do will be done using the standard "Windows API".

I'll post more later on using the SDK and building Add-ins...

[EDIT: For those of you direct linking here, I've posted a follow up here...]

-cek

Home Networking 101

The basic premise for troubleshooting your broadband modem and other home networking equipment often comes with the advice from your broadband provider to "turn it off, wait 60 seconds, and then turn it back on".  I have fielded calls from family members and friends asking me what to do because "...the internet is down".  I remember back to the original IBM PCs with the big red power switch on the back, and when something went wrong people would shout out - "hit the BFRS"  (Big "fine" Red Switch).

A few months back I implemented a rather simple solution for the "internet is down" calls that I get from time to time.  Get a power strip, plug the power block for your broadband modem and router/firewall device into this power strip - do not plug anything else into the power strip.  Now when I get the call, I simply tell them to turn off the power to this power strip, wait 60 seconds and then turn in back on.  If the power strip has a red power switch, then you can say "BFRS it".  This is a lot simpler than saying "unplug the power to the broadband modem, unplug the power to the firewall, ... " - and worrying that they plug the correct power plug back into the correct device.

Troubleshooting is 1/2 art and 1/2 science - if you are a scientist, you can argue about this ratio.  Finding simple solutions to complex problems is often times a wonderful feeling.   While turning the power off isn't considered ideal, it has worked 5 times in a row for "turning the internet back on". 

t.

 

Highest form of flattery

Recognition and buzz around the home server (lower case) category continue to grow.  Interesting to see this story last week in which Sony CEO Howard Stringer says one of Playstation's personas is as a home server.

If you haven't seen it yet, the official Microsoft.com Windows Home Server home page is up and running.  HP also has a preliminary "coming soon" site for MediaSmart Server.

Steve Wiseman over at IntelliAdmin adds to the growing number of Home Server reviews.  He starts his 3-part walk-through of the product saying he was skeptical at first, but "so far it is the perfect balance between simplicity and the needs of the user." 

Robert McLaws at Windows Now details how he built his Home Server system for under $500.  McLaws calls himself an online pundit who's barely old enough to buy alcohol.  Home Server definitely has its fans within Generation Y.   The other day I had the pleasure of meeting one of the top non-MS moderators on the Home Server Forum.  He's all of 15 years old.

Enjoy the weekend.  Spring has sprung in Redmond.

J

How software is made

The goal is to ship a great product with the bugs fixed, providing a great experience to our customers, and that is what we intend to do with Windows Home Server.

We really value user feedback, which is why we’re being very transparent and encouraging this feedback through the beta program. This is what allows us to fix any issues that may occur early on before the development of the final product.

To be clear, this is a beta. We have bugs and we’re fixing them every day. In fact, we closed over 100 yesterday. Bugs are part of the process and being informed on them is what allows us to make great software.

I have been in the software business for more years than I care to admit, and bugs are all part of the process. Thanks to the community for all of the great testing and the great comments on the blog.

t.

Game changer

Very detailed review of Home Server on Techgage here.  Maybe the most in-depth I've seen yet.  Reviewer Colin Huckstep says Home Server is in many ways a "NAS device with a brain."  Nice turn of phrase.  He also notes we're making a "valiant effort at getting home users to start doing regular backups."  Amen. Our research shows a majority of PC users suffer from backup guilt, as we say.  They know they should, but they just can't make themselves do it one PC at a time.  And restore isn't always, shall we say, a rewarding experience. 

Longtime industry observer Rob Enderle posted an interesting piece on EE Times suggesting MS and some of the other usual industry suspects are quickly encroaching on the cable industry's domain.  He critiques all the players (as usual), but calls MS the "potential game changer" and says Home Server's centralized storage capabilities could provide what others lack...calling them "very interesting and arguably best in class."  Pretty high praise from a smart, tough customer.

J

Entomophobia

    According to Wikipedia, Entomophobia is defined as the abnormal fear of or aversion to insects and similar arthropods, and even other "bugs", such as worms. Commonly, this condition might be referred to as the "Fear of insects or bugs". This condition causes a slight to severe emotional reaction, a form of anxiety or a panic attack.

     

    Here on the Windows Home Server team we have a mild case of Entomophobia. We have a bit of an infestation when it comes to bugs, 3377 of them have been submitted by beta participants to date. Can someone please pass the can of insect spray?

     

    Not all bugs are bad, when it comes to software development, bugs provide you with insight into what areas of the product need improvement and ultimately help you to build a better product. Below is a quick statistical summary of the bugs we have received so far.

     

    Before we get to the exciting bug discussion I should take a moment to introduce myself. I'm Chris Sullivan, I am a Program Manager on the Windows Home Server team that helps manage support and the beta program. Keeping track and resolving your bugs is my mission. On to the bug discussion...
     

    Bugs vs. Suggestions:

    Type of Bug

    # of Bugs Received

    % of Total Received

    Bugs

    2385

    71%

    Suggestions

    992

    29%

    Grand Total

    3377

     

     

    For the beta program we have bug submissions split into two categories:

    • Bugs: is an error, flaw, failure or fault in WHS that prevents it from behaving as intended.
    • Suggestions:  a thought or idea on improvements or changes to the current behavior of WHS.

     

    As you can see we have been receiving a good amount of suggestions. It's worth noting that we do take the time to review all suggestions, but we unfortunately don’t have the time to respond to each suggestion personally. 

     

    Total Bugs Received:

    Bug Status

    # of Bugs Received

    % of Total Received

    Active

    1235

    37%

    Closed

    1237

    37%

    Resolved

    905

    27%

    Grand Total

    3377

     

     

    As you can see we still have 1235 active bugs, of which 740 are suggestions.  Active bugs are bugs that are either under investigation, pending a response from a participant or waiting to be investigated. Suggestions are generally left active, as we do a more thorough review we will resolve and close them.

     

    Closed and Resolved Bugs:

    Resolution Type

    # of Bugs Closed/Resolved

    % of Total

    By Design

    274

    13%

    Duplicate

    568

    27%

    External

    155

    7%

    Fixed

    314

    15%

    Not Repro

    444

    21%

    Postponed

    229

    11%

    Won't Fix

    158

    7%

    Grand Total

    2142

     

     

    The table above excludes suggestions and focuses on the resolution of bugs.

     

    Types of Resolutions:

    • Fixed:  The Windows Home Server team is aware the bug exists and has checked in new code to fix the  bug in a future build. This bug could be reopened and "fixed" is not necessarily a promise that the bug will be fixed in the next release.
    • Won’t Fix / By Design:  The team is aware of the situation and may or may not address it in later builds or versions.  Often times, what seems to be a simple fix or ask may be more complicated than you assume.
    • Not repro:  Could not obtain enough information to reproduce and resolve the issue. For example, if you submit a bug and the Windows Home Server team asks for more information but you do not respond within a week, the bug will be set to No Repro. It’s very important to check your bug(s) frequently to make sure you are responding back to our requests.
    • Postponed:   The bug or suggestion has been reviewed and it has been determined to be an issue/feature request that the team will revisit at a later point in time.

     

    As you can see we have our work cut out for us. The bugs and suggestions received so far have been invaluable. It is clear from the sheer number of bugs and the quality of the bugs submitted that we have an amazing group of people involved in our beta program. It has been a great experience to be involved with this product and our wonderful community. Thank you for your help and participation.

     

    Keep those suggestions and bugs coming!

     

    C

Knowledge and Documentation

Thanks for the replies, although some of you are still answering it from your "I installed this product and here is what I like" perspective.  Try the other hat on .... here is what my household members think of it ... (Note:  only works if you live with other people).  

"Bucko" provided a good synopsis of selling points trying to convince a prospective customer, but "j and v" really hit the nail on the head.  How do I convince my wife that I can spend $xxx to buy this, or better yet how do I convince her to buy it for "us" for my birthday?

"dubbug" provided an interesting challenge and asked for a synopsis of quotes from "confused end users".  Sounds like a great topic for a future blog post.  I have read some interesting things in the home server forums, which has led me to firmly believe that 2 things are needed:

  • A collection of Technical Briefs that explain the inner workings of Windows Home Server, including how Automated Backup, Drive Extender, and Remote Access work, in detail.  I have added that to my long list of things to get done...and the list has more than 3 things on it.
  • A high-level overview of the benefits of a home server and why a household would need one ... that is also on my list.

Hopefully, you have all had time to read the Getting Started Guide and the Reviewers Guide for Windows Home Server posted on http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer (click on "Downloads" on the left).  So today's question is:

What additional documentation / knowledge can we share with you?  If I could produce a 5-6 page document, what would be the title of it?

t.

End User Benefits ...

How do you explain the benefits of Windows Home Server to the "end user" (not the administrator of Windows Home Server, but the person who you may need to convince or explain why this software is important, cool, or some other adjective du jour) in a home?  How do you get them to be excited about a new piece of technology - how do they see the benefits?

Here are some of the things I have heard from real people with the software:

  • "Fixing up the Kid's PC after they have made a mess of it, is so easy with the computer restore functiionality" 
  • "I gave my roommate R/W privileges to the Photos folder and he accidentally deleted a handful of pictures.  I used previous versions to recover it - he was happy, I was ecstatic!"
  • "My wife loves that all of our music is available through the old stereo with the Roku M1000 hooked up to it."

In a sense the home server is invisible until something goes wrong (e.g. restoring a PC or set of files) or it is providing a service (e.g. media streaming) that people aren't quite sure how it all works. 

I would love to hear other people's experiences in explaining the benefits of Windows Home Server to the "end users" in the home or even better true stories with real quotes .... Feel free to e-mail them or reply as comments to this post.

Worldwide Live

Remember the Scorpions? What was it about German-accented heavy metal lyrics that made the music that much more...well...awesome?  Speaking of Germany and global sensations, Windows Home Server made a big splash at the CeBit conference in Hannover this week, with showfloor demonstrations and lots of press. CeBit is bigger than the gi-normous Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, which is slightly terrifying.

Meanwhile, in the UK Ian Dixon has posted a great, two-part video walkthrough of Windows Home Server on his Digital Lifestyle Video Show, with multiple viewing options. 

Moving southeast, down in Australia David Flynn published a great story on Home Server in leading enthusiast magazine APC. The story isn't online yet, but Flynn writes that while there are some existing home servers on the market, "none offer the ease of set up, management and hands-free running promised by Windows Home Server."

J

 

Microsoft MVPs

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are a great bunch of people.  The annual MVP Global Summit is taking place this week at Microsoft, and I have been spending time with people from all over the world showing them Windows Home Server, and getting their feedback and input on what is missing. 

Over 200 of the MVPs are fervent beta testers of Windows Home Server and as a group they are responsible for finding quite a few bugs and submitting some great suggestions.  We spent Monday doing a product deep dive with them and answered question after question over 4 hours.  I have spent the last couple of days going to meet individually with different groups of MVPs with various areas of expertise.

Currently, Windows Home Server does not have its own set of MVPs, as we cannot register Windows Home Server as an area of expertise until we ship our first version.  I am looking forward to working directly with a core group of MVPs next year that will elect Windows Home Server to be their primary area of expertise.  We are also looking to keep the relationship alive with MVPs that stay with their current product, but are interested in registering Windows Home Server as a secondary interest.

Tomorrow we will do another deep dive 4 hour session on Windows Home Server with a group of MVPs that is staying over an extra day to learn about the product and provide us feedback. 

 t. 

If you build it...they will come

There seems to be increased buzz around home automation lately.  Here's an article out of the Middle East that says the region's building boom is driving an uptake in smart home technology, citing analyst firm In-Stat's prediction that the digital home server market will grow to the value of US$17 billion in 3 years.

I just saw some Forrester survey data that indicated 10% of people with home networks currently use them to program heating or air conditioning systems via PC or Internet and 5% use their home network to program their appliances.  Not huge numbers yet, but not insignificant, either.  Enter Windows Home Server running third party applications to boost those numbers in the not too distant future?

Of course, there are always concerns with new technology. Keith Regan of TechNewsWorld posted an article outlining the "ten scary things about home networking," e.g. costs, getting hacked or even a home meltdown a la Ray Bradbury's  "There Will Come Soft Rains." 

Post-apocalyptic sci-fi aside, yes, there's a reason they call it the bleeding edge.  But as one of the venture capitalists quoted in Regan's article says, problems create opportunities for those who have solutions. 

 J 

Floodgates and Forums

We opened up the floodgates today.  If you filled out the survey at the Windows Home Server Connect site,  and answered the questions correctly, then you should have received an invite to join the Windows Home Server Beta 2 program.  If you can't burn your own DVDs and CDs, then order a Disk Kit.  If you don't have the right hardware, then head to the store.  If you don't have Windows Home Server up and running, how can you help us make it better?

A special thanks goes out to the early contributors to the Home Server Forums who have helped answer some of the simpler questions, troubleshoot some of the more difficult and help people find the pre-posted bugs and suggestions on the Windows Home Server Connect site, so the product team doesn't have to waste time wading through a lot of duplicates.

Beta 2 was Build #1301, and since that time the product team has been busy cranking out new builds every day.  Today, we are up to Build #1345 which included English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese builds of the product.  The testing continues and the user interface continues to evolve, as the builds are really starting to look nicer and work better every day.  We still need sometime to work on the user interface and get some of the bugs out before releasing a new build.  As plans firm up, I will be sure to share them on the blog. 

Joel Sider, our smooth talking, Public Relations guy did a video with the Channel 10 guys.  Check it out to get a video vignette of some of the latest news.

t.

p.s.  If you didn't yet fill out a survey to participate in Windows Home Server Beta 2, the survey form is still available.  We will look at extending invitations to the people that queue up once or twice a week if we think we can handle the volume.

WHS and SBS

Windows Home Server (WHS) and Windows Small Business Server (SBS) are both built in the same organization at Microsoft, the Windows Server Solutions Group (WSSG) - two new 3 letter acronyms and one new 4 letter acronym for everybody to add to their knowledge banks.  We often get asked how are these 2 products different and also what do they have in common?

Both products are based on the proven technologies of Windows Server 2003, and both are targeted to meet the specific needs of a specific market segment.  Windows Home Server is targeted at consumers with a broadband connection and multiple PCs, and Windows Small Business Server is designed to meet the needs of a small business with up to 75 employees.  Windows Home Server will support up to 10 users, plus a Guest account.

Windows Small Business Server Standard Edition comes with Microsoft Exchange Server so that small businesses can have their own on-premise e-mail server.  On the other hand, Windows Home Server will not come with any e-mail functionality.  I know several people that use Windows Small Business Server in their homes, with some people hosting an e-mail service for all of their family members and close friends.  

The prices will be different.  As you can expect Windows Home Server will cost less than Windows Small Business Server.  I am sorry that I can't say any more about the expected price of Windows Home Server for awhile, but when I can ... there will surely be a blog post.

Windows Small Business Server comes into 2 different editions, Standard and Premium, and you can read about all the features and differences at http://www.microsoft.com/sbs.  Windows Home Server will initially only have a single edition, so we will just call the first version - Windows Home Server.  I suggest that you all go read about SBS, as it is a cool product that more people should know about.

t.

 

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