Answering some of the questions from the "beta" program
Beta Software - The home server team has to remind our beta testing community from time to time that Windows Home Server is beta software and during your beta testing you should not be using your home server as the only place to store your important photos, files, etc. We get e-mails and see forum posts from time to time that sounds like a few people are 100% reliant on our beta software for storing their collections of digital photos...directly from the Reviewer's Guide - "Ensure your important, non-replaceable files are stored and/or backed up separately."
Windows Home Server Console - The home server is meant to be a "headless" device. We have asked our beta participants to install the home server software and then unplug the monitor, mouse and keyboard. After installing the Windows Home Server Connector software on 1 or more of your home computers, you can configure and setup your home server using the Windows Home Server Console application from any of your home PCs. We know that people are using the Windows Home Server Console application by having a monitor, mouse and keyboard plugged into their home servers ...but we would prefer them to use the console application from their home computers.
Public Roadmap - People are always asking us to share our plans for a new build, the next release, and what features/functionality we expect to see in the product 3 years from now. What new features are coming? When are they coming? etc. We listen, read, discuss, analyze and track all of the feedback we receive from our many channels (hardware partners, software partners, beta testers, MVPs, MS insiders, MS employees, etc. etc.) and we prioritize it into a variety of buckets depending on how much time something will take to implement. We are a very customer driven team, and the best way to help us prioritize decisions is by submitting bugs and feature requests through our Connect site and voting and ranking them as a community. And try to search for an existing bug and/or feature request prior to posting a new one !
Users, Home Computers, Cost - There is always the age-old question - how much will it cost? Windows Home Server is designed to support 10 users (plus there is a Guest account) and you will also be able to install the Windows Home Server Connector software on up to 10 home computers. At this time, there are no plans for CALs (Client Access Licenses) for users and home computers, so when you buy a solution powered by Windows Home Server you will be able to use it up to these limits. We are still finalizing the pricing for the software and I can't tell you what our current thoughts are because everybody will be mad if they change ... and more importantly - we have to follow a few well defined processes at Microsoft on how everybody gets notified about stuff like pricing.
The Windows Home Server team loves all of the questions and passion about this product that we read about everyday in the Windows Home Server forums, on the Connect site, in various newsgroups, and other people's blogs. Please try to understand, that we want to answer every single question, but at times some of the questions that are being asked - can't be answered just yet for a variety of reasons that sometimes are hard to explain.
A list of other commonly asked questions and answers are up on the Microsoft Windows Home Server web page.
t.