Speaking off Microsoft Windows Home Server OEM with URP1, you need to confirm that is product works with your Operating Systems and home network environment (Router) such as :

Windows 2005 media center PC running OS Vista and/or XP or soon to be Windows 7! Yes or no? Runs with all SPKs (Service Packs)for any of these OSs. Yes or No?

runs with Windows Media Center Extenders – XBOX , XBOX 360 , All Linksys extenders. YES or NO ?

Supports your new HDTV (720i, 1080i , 720p ,1080i) with its play back! yes or No ?

Play on your TV anywhere in the your house ,at least, the windows Media Center recorded live TV media files.

Great job on the GUI and code on the server itself !!!!!The function and ease of use is great !

Now that you have all your Media in one place , how do you get it out to your new HDTV , AV systems, Cell phone , mobile device , ETC. There is the opportunity !

Rating: 2 / 5

I have been installing Windows systems since Windows for Work Groups and this is not a winner.

If you are not an experienced IT person,then you should just buy a preinstalled version from HP or whomever.

This is basically a bastardized SBS 2003 (with some fancy peer backup programs that use WIM files) that will not let you run most,if not all user desktop apps.

This is M$ marketing at work at it’s most fiendish.

Here are a list of issues:

1)It cannot be used as a workstation,so forget about installing Office or whatever without having to hack the user account settings.

2)A number of printers (Brother networked all in ones)will not work because the install program will not recognize the OS.

3)Updates quit working after a while.

4)Admin is a nightmare,in that the client piece has trouble updating from the main server piece.

The price has dropped from $[. . . ] bucks list to about $[. . . ] in less than a year.

You want to know why?

It’s going to be ditched reeeeeeeal soon ,as in dead product!

Get XP or Win7 and buy a 3rd part backup program like Acronis or Bounce back and run these in a peer mode.

This product is a certified loser!

Can you say ME or Vista?
Rating: 1 / 5

I have been using Windows Home Server (WHS) for about a year now. I originally bought it to be a file server that could be used to share the family’s collection of photos, videos, music, etc. When I bought it, I didn’t even know that it also provided regular, automated, full backups of all of the PCs that connect to it. The backup function alone is worth the price of the software, and, as many other reviewers have already noted, the OS can run on pretty light-weight hardware so that the cost of the actual server can be almost non-existent (e. g. , re-purpose an older machine). However, be advised that once you start using WHS, you may find a growing desire to add disk space so it’s a good idea to make sure that your original setup can handle additional disks without requiring that you head into the start-over zone.

I built mine in an old, large case with room for lots of external disks. I used a cheap Atom-based motherboard (that can handle two IDE PATA drives and two SATA drives) and I added an extra SATA controller card, so that the system can hold a total of six SATA drives. I installed the OS on a 300gig IDE PATA drive and I have been putting the data on SATA drives. At the moment, I’ve got five SATA drives in the case and I’ll add the sixth one later tonight, to give me a total of six terabytes of data capacity. I need a lot of disk space because I’m backing up ten client machines and each of them has a fair amount of space.

The backup / restore function works really well – I’ve used it to completely replace a hard disk on one of my kid’s computers after a total disk failure. The OS installs a “software” share on the server and that share includes a text file with advice on how to create a RESTORE CD. The short version is, go to a Microsoft server, download the latest version of the Restore CD as an ISO file, and burn it to a CD. (It’s a good idea to do this BEFORE you have a system needing a full restore. )

When it’s time to do a full restore, you power down the broken client, install a new hard drive, then boot the client using the RESTORE CD as boot media (This may require a BIOS adjustment to get the system to boot from the CD. ) Next, you’ll discover that you need to provide the necessary network drivers (preferably on a USB jump drive) to get the broken client to be able to “talk” to the server for the restore. At this point, you’ll probably think, “Damn, where am I supposed to find the drivers?” but the answer is, on the Windows Home Server. The folks at MS clearly recognized this as a real problem so the client software automatically identifies all of the necessary drivers for each client system and then puts copies of them in a clearly labeled directory on the server, with one directory for each separate client machine. This is great!

With the drivers copied on to a jump drive (either directly from the server or via a different, non-broken client machine), you are completely ready to go. After you’ve used the RESTORE CD to boot the broken client (with its new hard drive) and given it the drivers it needs via the USB drive, you just follow the menu choices to connect to the server, pick which version of the collection of backups you want to use, and start the restore process. With a big disk, the restore can take a couple of hours, but when it is done, you just remove the RESTORE CD and reboot the client and, BINGO, it is fully restored – the OS, all of the applications, all of the data, everything is back to where it was.

The first back up of a client machine can take a while, but after that all backups are incremental and thus are done quickly. Knowing that you have multiple backups for all computers in your home can be very comforting. Knowing that the RESTORE function actually works can be even more comforting.

This is a good product.

One thing you should know: the WHS server has a limit of ten registered clients. If you need to provide backup and restore capabilities for more than that, you’ll need to set up multiple WHS servers.
Rating: 5 / 5