The Windows Home Server Team is pleased to announce that Power Pack 3 will be available in all shipping languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish) on November 24^th, 2009. Power Pack 3 will be made available to existing users via Windows Update. Users need to have Windows Home Server with Power Pack 2 already installed on their home server. Power Pack 3 will automatically install as part of Windows Update if Automatic Updates is enabled on the home server.

As we’ve communicated in a past post, Power Pack 3 improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing new features like: backup and restore of computers running Windows 7, Windows 7 Libraries integration, enhancements for Windows Media Center, and better support for netbook computers. Power Pack 3 will enable the most optimal experience for Windows 7 users on a Windows Home Server network.

“If you've recently upgraded to Windows 7, Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 is an essential download providing enhanced integration between the two platforms and a number of cool new features. Combine library support with enhanced features for Windows Media Center, and we're really starting to see Microsoft bring together the Windows Home Server and Windows 7 client experience so that your media can be stored on your home server and enjoyed seamlessly on TV, PC and Mobile devices with little effort from the user. The bad old days of copy, paste, convert and transcode may well be behind us,” says Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) Terry Walsh of We Got Served.

Microsoft MVP Alex Kuretz of MediaSmartServer.net says “Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 makes storing and accessing your media easier by bringing all the content contained on your Home Server smoothly into your Windows 7 libraries. TV Archive is also a very nice feature that has allowed me to record TV shows and move them to my Home Server to be watched at a later time.”

Here are some details on what’s new:

Windows 7 Libraries integration

When you install the Windows Home Server Connector and log on a computer running Windows 7, you can access the Windows Home Server shared folders from the Windows 7 libraries.

Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression

After you install the Windows Home Server Connector to enable the home server backup for your computer running Windows 7, you can suppress the Action Center warning reminding you that Windows Backup has not been set up.

Windows 7 power settings

You can configure your computer running Windows 7 to wake up at a scheduled backup time and then go back to sleep after the backup finishes.

? Console support for Windows 7

Windows 7 is properly displayed as the operating system shown in the Computers & Backup tab.

Windows Search

Windows Search 4 is included to improve query search times, indexing times, and reliability. Extended Remote Discovery increases the efficiency of searching across all your libraries running Windows Search 4. Files encrypted with EFS are now supported.

TV archive

Windows Home Server can automatically archive recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This enables playback in the correct format for your home computers and/or portable devices.

Console view

You can view information about your home server’s storage space, hard drives, backup status, and more from Windows Media Center.

Complete details are available in the Power Pack 3 Release Documentation.

We want to thank our community for all of their testing and feedback over these past months with the Power Pack 3 Beta. You validated that Power Pack 3 was ready for release. We like to think that we are building this product together – as a passionate community.

- The Windows Home Server Team

Hot off the presses, we’re extremely pleased to report that our newest OEM, ASUS, has just announced that they’ll soon be introducing a new Home Server to the market here in the US – and in other markets across the globe. Their TS Mini Home Server, powered by a 1.66 GhZ Intel Atom chipset and running Windows Home Server, will come in two configurations:

• 500GB Hard Drive (with 1 empty HDD bay) @ $349 MSRP
• 1 TB Hard Drive (with 1 empty HDD bay) @ $529 MSRP

 

The form factor is pretty sleek and comes packed with 6 USB ports and an eSata port for additional external storage options. In addition to all the great features of the underlying Windows Home Server operating system, the TS Mini will also come bundled with a free year long subscription to a 500 GB online storage service, a feature that automatically synchronizes files stored on the TS Mini with external drives, and a real time system monitoring tool.

Not to be outdone, ASUS also points to the device’s ‘green’ credentials: it’s certified ‘Energy 5.0’ compliant and consumes on average only 24.5W.

The TS Mini is now available for pre-order at online retailers Amazon.com and NewEgg.

A hearty welcome to ASUS in joining the Home Server family!

- Mark

If you look back at posts from several weeks ago, I wrote about the Top 10 Reasons to use Windows Home Server. Since then, I have been explaining each bullet in more detail including backup and restore , installing your home server , and connecting to friends and family through Windows Home Server’s Remote Access. Today, I will tell you a little more about item number 5 on the list - Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender and how it can provide an unlimited amount of space for your large collection of recorded Family Guy episodes or the thousands or pictures that are sitting unprotected on your PC.

With Windows Home Server, storage space grows as your needs and digital possessions grow. Thanks to Windows Home Server Drive Extender , you are able to add internal or external hard drives of any size so which will create an unlimited amount of storage space for your HD movies, pictures, or huge collection of Family Guy episodes. Users will no longer have worry about disk drive letters (C:, D:, E:, etc. etc.) as they add more hard drives to their home server, since Windows Home Server treats the disk space as a large pool of available space. Windows Home Server also monitors the health of each hard drive that is added. The lights on the outside of the server will turn Red if a drive is failing, Purple if there's a drive but it's not configured and Blue if it's configured and healthy.

*Screen shot of a Windows Home Server with over 3TB of space

In a recent satisfaction survey completed by Windows Home Server users, we found that 54% of people using the English version of Windows Home Server have 4 or more hard drives connected to their server! Some more fun facts about how people today are getting the most out of their Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender include:

• The largest number of hard drives currently attached to a home server is 30, there are lots and lots of people with more than 10 hard drives attached to their home servers
• The largest amount of available disk space that we have seen (so far) is: 36.603516 terabytes
• The largest amount of used disk space that we have seen (so far) is: 24.093750 terabytes

 

*Fans in a home-built Windows Home Server that are being used to cool 13 hard drives.

Windows Home Server Drive Extender provides the reliability benefits of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) without the complexity. Windows Home Server supports reliability by duplicating designated shared folders – so important data (e.g. your Photos, Music, etc.) will be stored on separate hard drives helping to provide protection against hard drive failure.  Folder Duplication is configurable on a per shared folder basis, so a given shared folder can have multiple copies, with each one being stored on a separate hard drive.

How is it different from RAID solutions?

• Any hard drive, any time. You are not restricted to simply adding more hard drives of the same type and size. When you want to grow your home server storage, you just buy whatever hard drive you like and add it.
• Internal and external hard drives can be used to grow your storage. No space in your home server case? No problem, plug in one or more USB 2.0 or FireWire hard drives.
• Hard drive removal, as explained above. With time, it will be important to remove the older smaller hard drives and put in new larger hard drives so you can store more stuff.

To see how easy it is to add and remove a hard drive first hand, take a look at the screen cast below:

 

-Nicole

Many people today have rescued their important documents and media by using Windows Home Server’s backup and restore capabilities. One man claims that Windows Home Server even saved his marriage.

Hopefully, by now you have read our Top 10 list for the reasons you should use Windows Home Server. Now, I will be telling you a little bit more about each point, and we are going to start with the most commonly used features, Backup and Restore.

The prospect of losing or damaging your precious possessions is terrifying. Today, a lot of those possessions are digital, such as your irreplaceable pictures. In general, we do our best to protect those items by occasionally backing up our computers, but shouldn’t something that important be looked after better? For total peace of mind, Windows Home Server does a complete image-based backup automatically everyday.

With Windows Home Server's data recovery capabilities, you can bring back individual files or folders. You can even recover a PC that's had an unfortunate accident or hard drive failure because Windows Home Server makes a copy of the entire contents of your home computer’s hard drive. Scott Hanselman is one of the many people that have used this feature, and he claims that it was so successful, it saved his marriage. In this post , Scott Hanselman writes about how he saved the day when his wife’s PC had a hard drive get smashed in by their 2-year old son. Windows Home Server is known for its speed when going through the restore process, and Scott is a true testament to that claiming “I hit Finish and it took like 11 minutes (creepy fast) to restore”. In no time, he had his wife’s PC fully restored and running like normal.

 

Scott’s story is only one among many others. One member of the Windows Home Server team asked the public to tell him their stories of how their Windows Home Server has “saved their lives”. Hundreds of people responded to this post, along with enthusiastically talking about how much they love having a Home Server.

Some highlighted quotes from this forum include:

• “I also had a very easy time setting up Windows Home Server and it just works".
• “After about an hour or so, I went and watched TV while this was running, I was back in business.  This definitely saved me time in rebuilding the laptop, without Windows Home Server it would have been 8 hours of rebuilding the OS and reinstalling all of my applications.”
• “This has to be one of Microsoft's best products that have come down the line.”
• “Windows Home Server saved me from a fairly ugly Saturday night and Sunday rebuilding my workstation.”
• “I actually don't have a bad thing to say about it, great product.”

If you are interested in learning more about Windows Home Server and it’s backup and restore capabilities, HP has created a "How To" video where you can watch an HP MediaSmart Server protect your files.

For further information, you can also visit www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver.

You may have been hearing a lot about Windows Home Server recently, so now you are asking, why should I buy one, and what benefits will I get out of it? Well, to help you answer those important questions, the Windows Home Server team has come up with the Top 10 reasons to use this product! In this post, you can read a brief overview of each item, but check back soon because we will be taking a closer look at each point, along with how Windows Home Server has already helped thousands of people.

1. Image-based backup

Rest easy and know that your irreplaceable videos and pictures are always safe since Windows Home Server automatically backs up your entire computer on a daily basis.

2. Restore 

If catastrophe strikes, Windows Home Server has simple and fast data recovery with a restore feature for single files or entire hard drives that have failed.

3. Monitor

Windows Home Server will monitor the health status of your home network and immediately alert you if there is a problem.

4. Centralize

Windows Home Server stores your digital memories in a central location so you can access what you want from any computer on the network and save time by having all your things in one place.

5. Storage

With Windows Home Server, storage space grows as your needs grow. You are able to add internal or external hard drives of any size so that you can have an unlimited amount of storage space for HD movies, or your home videos.

 

6. User accounts

Windows Home Server allows you to create up to 10 user accounts. To increase protection, you can change the Shared Folders that users have access to, and enable remote access for each user.

7. Remote Access

When you are out of your home or office, Windows Home Server has remote access capabilities that make it possible for you to view, find files, and even use applications.

8. Stream media

Windows Home Server enables you to view, listen, and watch your videos, movies, and picture slideshows through playback devices such as Xbox 360.

9. Fully Expandable

Windows Home Server add-in programs can enhance and extend your home server's capabilities.  There are already over 100 add-ins available for download.

10. Easy to use

An uncomplicated, self-explanatory installation process for Window Home Server will have you up and running with minimum time and effort.

Hopefully, you are now ready to buy your very own Windows Home Server and start organizing, protecting, and sharing all of your digital experiences!

-Nicole

CJ Saretto, Senior Program Manager provides an overview of Power Pack 3 features including how it will improve the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center. Fan Zhang, Development Lead on the Windows Home Server team in China also gave his input on several new features including Backup Warning Suppression, and Windows Search 4. (Keep in mind that Windows 7 is compatible with the current version of Windows Home Server, but Power Pack 3 will offer additional enhancements).

It has been just over 1 month since the Power Pack 3 BETA was made available to the public and we have seen great participation. We have received helpful user feedback and the work toward a final release in the end of October is looking good.

The video is posted here.

If you are still interested in trying out the Power Pack 3 BETA and becoming a participant, you can sign up on Microsoft Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer.

-Nicole