Of course I'll install it! Always a pleasure, no it's an honour to improve one of the worlds' fines operating systems!!

Mine's the white one, with the leather straps on the sleeves and near the crotch, thank you.

...Install a buggy beta that expires in 4 mos. when I could do the same thing for free with Linux, or even an old and cheap copy of Windows server? Or if it's going to just be a file server, a running copy of any fairly stable OS? Or cheap RAIDed NAS? Or any number of other, better solutions.

For about £200, you can have a Synology or QNAP (or other) NAS box with a few hundred Gigabytes of hard drive in it. This can be easily upgraded to higher capacities and have external backups added in a variety of configurations as your budget and needs develop. They also have built in FTP server, web server, BT downloader, scheduled backup, multi-user storage allocation management, etc.

Why should anyone want a Microsoft Home Server running in a giant box when one of these little beauties will do it all for you?

they are already running beta software anyway, so it's not like they have any problem with a beta patch

Well its about bladdie time they fixed up Home Server. Its even more buggy than Vista before SP1.

...but not how you might think.

Don't open-source junkies run beta software all the time? Submit bug reports, and even fix the stuff? Although they couldn't go that far in this case, the approach of "have the power users debug their software" is nowhere near a novelty.

on the original Beta, was too buggy even at RTM so I bought an ICY-BOX NAS for £80 and stuffed two 1GB drives, works like a dream, low power consumption, good media streaming and reliable... everything Home Server isn't.

PS My invite for the Beta of the bug fix ended up in the Junk Items... how appropriate

I can get a little box and put linux on it and have a 'home'* server for less than the price of the windows home server licence.

And just what is a home server anyway - is it a disabled proper server with an expensive upgrade path?

Surely those who will have an interest will be those already running the OS, in which case what have they got to lose? The OS they bought already loses data, how can even MS top that?

Paris, as the Asus girl isn't available.

My fileserver at home is running a spare copy of Windows XP pro, and functions perfectly as a 1TB file/music/video server (when coupled with a few Sonos boxes around the house), an FTP server, and a Web server. Why would I pay a couple of hundred quid for a buggy and unstable product, just because it's marketed directly as a home server?

People won't even use their search engine without being paid for it, and even that remains to be seen. What makes them think anyone wants to test their buggy, data-eating, time-consuming, sub-par server software for free? Especially when there are so many alternatives that actually work and don't cost nearly as much.

There are those who simply believe everything Uncle Bill tells them. Reality is that WHS is a sack of the worst kind of stinking shiat. After having a few too many scoops one night I installed it in a VM for amusement factor. Once I'd finished laughing and managed to get up off the floor, it was subsequently and ruthlessly piped directly to /dev/null.

Just use FreeNAS fod God's sake. It's superior in every way (and it also does proper RAID don't ya know).

I just love to reinstall WHS and the accompanying 600GB of data. Hey, at least with WHS, I HAVE to have a "backup of the backup", thereby doubling the HW cost of my data storage. But no problem, I have it backed up.

Paris-cause I like torture too!

I just don't understand this, past versions of Windows has clearly shown that Microsoft has more than their fair share of dummies.

@ Adam Buckland:

"and stuffed two 1GB drives, works like a dream,"

Well, OK, but 2 GB of storage wouldn't get me very far...

@ Miles Attacca:

"Don't open-source junkies run beta software all the time?"

Actually, few that I know of do that in a production environment or even at home. You see, when an OSS distribution is production ready, it is just as production ready as any closed-source bit of software. Come to think of it, usually far less buggy than closed-source "final" releases.

Of course, if you want to use alpha-releases of OSS, that's your own lookout. Most OSS users don't do that in a production environment though (and I personally prefer to test alphas and betas on a nice virtual machine where it can't impact my productivity.

I have downloaded from the Microsoft website and found that when trying to access the download I am greeted with "Windows cannot open this file", why not for gods sake? they generated it. Is it a wicked plot by his holiness to send us completely mad ir is it that neither he, nor his staff, have comprehension of the English language of the English language as it is spoken and understood in England? I have queried this with the fountainhead on a "contact us" link but have never had the courtesy of even an acknowledgement, let alone a reply. Francis Offord.

Microsoft gives closed source software such a bad name...

It seemed liked a reasonable idea at first, but with the range of NAS (some mentioned above) available I have to wonder about this whole idea of WHS. For a start it is not very [topically] Green to have a full-blown computer just to spin up a few HDDs, is it?

There are so many much better solutions available that only the M$ loyal will be likely to be buying WHS in droves. As for being a crash test dummy for the great Gates corporation, if its all the same I'd rather stick rusty needles in my eyes.

Think and I only think, this is only the second time I have heard of it could be the first.

Quick google ; WHS quote "is part of a long-term vision by Microsoft to create a new platform for the home. Launched in 2007, Windows Home Server helps families and home-based businesses with multiple computers to organize, share, and automatically back up photos, videos, music, and other important documents. " unquote.

BUT kills the data when moving it. OK WTF !

The above quote comes from "http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer" which also lets you "Order your friends and relatives an evaluation copy of Windows Home Server."

its the sort of thing BOFH would sent the Boss.

Microsoft must rue the day they made the 'odd' decision to let the client devision not servers and tools loose on the home server project :-)

Paris, because even she wouldn't give the client team a look in.