HP Pulls Plug on WHS

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allan

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#72721 1-Dec-2010 21:46

Wow, HP have announced an immediate withdrawal from the Windows Home Server market!
http://www.wegotserved.com/2010/12/01/hp-pulls-windows-home-server-market-leaves-vail-cold/

Given that HP were Microsoft's initial WHS partner, this coupled with the fiasco over Drive Extender non-support in Vail would pretty much mean the beginning of the end of a great product. What a pity.

richms

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#411818 1-Dec-2010 22:26

I dont think it was a great product to be honest, and I dont think that the homegroup junk in windows 7 is a good idea either.

IMO, a home server should be exactly the same as a domain controller for businesses but with limitations and a friendlier way to manage it. Not this "homegroup password" stuff with no way to keep certain people in and out of folders on a NAS that is currently being peddled.

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allan

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#411842 1-Dec-2010 23:04

Actually I've loved it. It seemed the perfect combination of features for home and the PC image backups have saved me several times.

freitasm

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#411894 2-Dec-2010 07:49

richms: IMO, a home server should be exactly the same as a domain controller for businesses but with limitations and a friendlier way to manage it. Not this "homegroup password" stuff with no way to keep certain people in and out of folders on a NAS that is currently being peddled.

Windows Home Server has nothing to do with Windows 7 Homegroup. It's very easy to use, basically relying on username/password, like a standard network.

It automatically create user groups and assign those to the folders, depending on the combination of folders you want each user to access, in a transparent way, with at most two clicks. A Domain Controller would add unnecessary complexity to an easy to use solution.

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tumnasgt

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#412518 3-Dec-2010 14:47

Having a domain controller would require business versions of Windows, which would kill the idea of a "home" server.

I use mine for the fantastic backup abilities, and drive extender so I can just add a disk when I run out of space instead of having to migrate drives every 6 months. Version 1 does everything I need, though supporting more than 4GB of RAM would be nice, as my VM is struggling a bit.

I don't blame HP for leaving the sector at all, it has never been a massive seller and now MS has killed off one of the two unique WHS features so sales will get even worse.

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richms

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#412573 3-Dec-2010 17:13

I know, im saying the whole idea of something LIKE a domain contoller is needed for home networks. As it is with home installs you get lousy sharing options, have to either reenter passwords all the time or have them the same on all computers, to me that is one of the areas that a home server needs to solve somehow, single authentication for everything, and some decent media sharing with similar ability to limit access to things.

Richard rich.ms

tumnasgt

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#412648 3-Dec-2010 21:23

richms: I know, im saying the whole idea of something LIKE a domain contoller is needed for home networks. As it is with home installs you get lousy sharing options, have to either reenter passwords all the time or have them the same on all computers, to me that is one of the areas that a home server needs to solve somehow, single authentication for everything, and some decent media sharing with similar ability to limit access to things.

WHS recommends that you use the same password for both the computer and server account for each user. Sharing then uses the Windows authentication (like all Windows shares do), so there is restricted access, and no need to enter passwords all the time. Having a domain controller-like function would just make things more complex than they need to be.