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- Updated Technical Briefs for Windows Home ServerSeptember 17
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The technical briefs and other documents for Windows Home Server have been updated to incorporate new and changed functionality with Windows Home Server Power Pack 1. Technical Briefs are "Level 200" documents designed for a more technical audience as they explain some of the inner-workings and technical and troubleshooting tips for Windows Home Server.
Most of the documents are now published in Microsoft Word format, so that you can more easily grab subsets of the content for answering questions in the Community forums.
- Time to evangelize! WHS Platform Extensibility Day 2008September 16
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As we've posted to this blog before, the Windows Home Server team is gearing up for a big presence at the upcoming PDC 2008 show in Los Angeles, CA. With so much riding on the line at this important event, we naturally want to get as much input on our messages from a critical audience - the developers who are building apps, services and solutions for Windows Home Server!
With this in mind - of course the broader goal of boosting the visibility of our Extensibility Platform - the Windows Home Server team last week hosted 30+ developers, OEMs, and hardware partners at our first annual Windows Home Server Platform Extensibility Day. Or make that several days. ;-) The focus of the event was providing partners with guidance on how to develop applications and services using our SDK, available publicly on MSDN. Both the Marketing and Engineering teams worked hard to 'share the love' and evangelize our product's key value proposition - our extensibility platform - with our valued partners.
It was very gratifying to see partners enthused by the possibilities of developing for the Windows Home Server ecosystem. And it was great to hear ideas, get feedback, and help answer partners' questions in person. Hopefully, we'll be seeing the fruits of these efforts show up in more apps for Home Server users! We're thinking of broadening and expanding
- 10 Computers & 10 UsersSeptember 5
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From time to time, people ask the home server team how and why we made certain decisions for the initial release of WIndows Home Server. Currently, you can define 10 user accounts in the Windows Home Server Console and you can install the Windows Home Server Connector software on up to 10 home computers running Windows XP or Windows Vista.
In all of the secondary research that we reviewed and primary research that we did for home server as part of the product planning process, it was very rare to find broadband connected households and home-based businesses with more than 10 people and with more than 10 home computers. Additionally, Microsoft offers a great product, Windows Small Business Server, that scales well beyond 10 users for more sophisticated home-based businesses or small businesses that plan on growing. You can read about the upcoming release of Windows Small Business Server 2008 on the microsoft web site.
We didn't want to build a consumer product that used CALs (Client Access Licenses) as we really didn't think consumers wanted to deal with managing licenses for their home PCs and sometimes when you say CAL, people hear "cow" and respond that they live in the city not on a ranch and don't really have a need for cattle.
However, we knew that ther
- Big in JapanAugust 19
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Last year our Japanese subsidiary took the English version of Windows Home Server and packaged it up for the Japanese market. We here in Redmond were amazed at how well it has sold! This success in Japan encouraged us to build a Japanese language version of Windows Home Server and I’m excited to announce that today we’ve officially launched it!
From the song “Big In Japan” by Alphaville (I’m a slave to 80’s pop music):
Aah when you're big in Japan-tonight...
Big in Japan-be-tight...
Big in Japan... ooh the eastern sea's so blue
Big in Japan-alright,
Pay! -- Then I'll sleep by your side
Things are easy when you're big in Japan
Oh when you're big in JapanThe following Japanese companies have announced that they will be shipping Windows Home Server powered home servers or Windows Home Server related products in Japan: Epson, NEC, Mouse Computer Japan, Logitec, Thirdwave, Unitcom, Tsukumo, PDX Japan, Clevery, Regin, Applied, Sofmap, Sycom.
The launch event was held today (August 20) in Tokyo and included demos of the new Windows Home Server products from Epson, NEC, and Mouse Computer Japan. Here’s some links to a few of the new ho
- Why RAID is not a consumer technologyAugust 11
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Last weekend I found some blog posts by a blogger who calls himself "Fear the Cowboy" discussing some of the more severe technical limitations that RAID (especially RAID 5) has compared to Windows Home Server Drive Extender. Check out his posts here.
His posts got me motivated to write this one, which I've been meaning to do for quite some time...
When we were thinking of building the Windows Home Server product and doing focus groups we'd ask consumers "what do you know about RAID". Uniformly the answer was (at least in the U.S.) "Oh, that's a insect repellant".
Geeks & IT professionals know RAID stands for "Redundant Array of Independent Disks" and is a storage technology widely used in the corporate IT world.
Those same geeks, when encountering Windows Home Server for the first time, often ask the question "Why doesn't Windows Home Server use RAID?". The simplest answer is RAID sucks as the basis for a consumer storage product. But, my PR team would rather I not say it in such a negative way. Instead, they want me to say something positive like:
"Windows Home Server is a consumer product that provides an amazingly powerful yet s