One Household at a Time

When we started formulating ideas for solving the problems for households with multiple PCs and a broadband connection, we focused on the development of solutions that solved problems one household at a time, instead of a single PC at a time.  And based on the customer research, multiple usability tests, and some "gut feel" decisions, we opted to deliver the following high-level features and functionality in the first version of Windows Home Server:

 

· Automated Computer Backup with Simple Restore for your Home Computers

Windows Home Server helps provide you with peace of mind by automatically backing up all of your home computers and your important files; making it easy to restore an entire home computer or just a file from a previous point in time.

· Access Everything from Anywhere

Your home server enables you to easily and more securely access your files and personal computers from inside and outside of your home.  You can use your home server to store all of your important files in a central location, for access anytime and anywhere.

· Solution that Grows with You 

Windows Home Server grows with you and meets your needs, today and into the future.  It is incredibly easy to add hard drives as you need more space for your documents, photos, music and videos.

I realize that this is a high-level overview and you want more details about all of the nitty gritty cool features under each of these broad categories, and all that will be coming in the subsequent days.  

I do want to add that we have tried to minimize the number of "knobs and buttons" that people need to use to configure their home server to get things working.  For example, after you connect your home server hardware, that is powered by the Windows Home Server software, into your broadband router/firewall with an ethernet cable (and plug the power cord into the wall) then you just need to load the Windows Home Server Connector software on each of your home computers running the Windows XP or Windows Vista operating systems.  

After the Windows Home Server Connector software is installed, a full image-based backup of each home computer is initiated every single night by the Windows Home Server software.  From these backups stored on the home server, you can do a complete restore of the entire PC or open up one of these backups to restore individual files and folders.  By default, we make the assumption that people want to backup all of the PCs in their house so they can do a complete image-based restore if necessary, and we have some great technology for consuming very little disk space on your home server for all of these backups.  More on that tomorrow ...

t.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  In the spirit of "Access Everything from Anywhere", will it be possible to use WHS as sort of a centralised RSS feed store? I have a laptop and desktop computer at home. I subscribed to the same feeds on both computers, but when I read an updated feed on, say, my laptop, it will obviously still be marked as 'unread' on my desktop. So next time I'm on my desktop, I'll have to open all these 'unread' feeds to see if there is actually something new, or if it's just the messages that I already read on my laptop. Same thing goes for Windows Mail: will it be possible to let Windows Mail store my email on WHS so that I will be able to check my mail from both the laptop and the desktop?

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  "the Windows Home Server Connector software on each of your home computers running the Windows XP or Windows Vista operating systems." You realise some of us run Windows Server editions at home? So, no backup solution there then?

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  I think an important part of "growing with you" is the need to be platform agnostic.  Like Microsoft's new SYNC initiative, Home Server should recognize that someone may own a Mac or PS3, or even gasp Linux in their home. Much of this work is on the client's end, such as Mac supporting Windows networking.  But I hope that Home Server reaches out to other divisions (such as the Mac BU) to create new interoperability across Microsoft initiatives (even ones that extend beyond Microsoft products).

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  I'm still going to close my eyes and cross my fingers that remote backup will be involved until they specifically address it and say "No Jonathan, I'm sorry, we hate you." <3 I know I'm reaching, but the anywhere file access leaves me with hope.  Plus allowing the I have a kid at college crowd does expand their market.....

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  To Brothernod - I think right now the "anywhere file access" is referring just to the remote web interface for the server (which I think is a fantastic feature, by the way.)  I'm definitely in agreement, however, that this product should tie into service-based (Live) features such as remote backup.(What happens when it's the server that gets fried or my house burns down?) For future technology discussions... It appears that this server is not going to be using a domain environment (So non-domain capable OS's will still work with it.)  But I'd really like to be able to at least manage the Vista parental controls from the server.  Will this be able to be done with the connector software? The potential of this project is so exciting!  My biggest concern is that the limited scope of this initial release won't impress enough people to make the initial version a huge success and therefore pave the way for a future version with more compelling features.  Much of the core functionality of this product (central file repository, backup for all PC's and remote file access) have been available for years in other ready-made packages (like the Mirra Personal Server.)

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  I think it would be nice if it could also address the patching issue.  A baby WSUS server.  It would save bandwidth and make the home more secure and lest tediuos for the Home IT.. Just a thought