If you've been interested in WHS, now's the time. Head on over to http://connect.microsoft.com and sign up - all new applicants are accepted.

They have now lowered the system requirements:
* Pentium 3 class CPU (P4 class recommended)
* 512MB RAM
* 70GB Drive Space (you'll want as much spare storage as you can lay your hands on, tho)
* Bootable DVD drive
* USB 2.0 required if you are using external storage
* WIRED ethernet connection to your home router (no more wireless connections to the router allowed)

Clients can be any XP or Vista OS

That means any older box you might have laying around probably can run WHS. The new version supposedly has a ton of improvements; I'm installing now and will report on what I see.

NOTES:

My Hardware:

Dell Optiplex GX260: P4 2.00GHz, 512MB DDR, 120GB IDE HDD, IDE DVD-ROM (a surplus machine from work with an old hard drive and spare DVD I had lying around).

** INSTALLATION **
- Installation is LONG - ANNOYINGLY long. Well over an hour on my hardware. Be sure you don't start the process at 11:30 like I did if you want to watch.
- There is no user interaction after the initial config, so you can walk away or go to bed once the "copying installation files" portion begins.
- Be sure you have a mouse attached for the EULA - it doesn't let you tab to it.
- Installation is really uneven. You get the Vista preinstall environment, then a windows 2k3 one, then a custom one, then the Win2K3 text boot, then back to the win2k3 gui installer, then the custom one once it boots the OS. WFT is up with THAT?
- There are TONS of reboots involved between the installation itself and the updates applied after - be warned.
- Once it's done, it brings up a very nice looking Vista-esque install screen where you complete installation by configuring auto updates and your password.

More later, as I install the client now....

I said pretty much the exact same things, when I first install the beta ages ago.

OK, the client is MUCH improved over the Beta 2 release I was using. It now has a solid Vista UI, and you can easily turn on/off backups (a big deal if you don't have a lot of disk space). The system now will automatically configure your router to pass the web ports through if your hardware fully supports UPNP, and will even TEST the system from an external host to see if it can be reached. MS also now supplies you with a domain name for easy reference through the UI and tests to make sure it working. So far, so good on my end.

Great and thanks for the info. Illy--both in terms of its availability and your experience with it thus far.

Unfortunately my stint on the beta team was cut short by the demise of my puter, which required that I canabilizing my test rig to avoid falling off the E-planet.

Who won the [to add or not to add an] email server war?

A few other improvements:

* WHS will now automatically "balance" its storage. This means it constantly defrags your drives, and if you have multiple drives it will automatically spread the files stored on it across them as evenly as possible to increase performance.
* WHS now supports "file duplication" if you have more than one drive. This is sort of like a per-file or per-share RAID1 - if you turn it on, the items selected will automatically have a copy placed on two different drives to protect their loss in case a drive dies. It's not a true RAID solution, but it gives the benefits of one on a per-file basis, and is hence a lot less wasteful of drive space.
* Completely new in the CTP build is support for plugins; these are API-developed apps that extend the functions of WHS. For example, there one available that will automatically upload any photos you put in the WHS photo share to Flickr. It has a lot of potential.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed. It's a pretty massive improvement over Beta 2, and meets every feature promised by BillG in his keynote announcement. How often does THAT happen with a product?


No email server. They're sticking with the original feature set.

Yeah! Common sense prevailed. The last thing we need is a bunch of end users running open relays turning the spam wars into a flat-out melee

@Illrigger...
Most of those features were in RC2...I was using them. I turned off some backups.

Hopefully they improved all this. I'm downloading it as they speak.

I'm really upset that all my previous backups will get wiped.
Due to computer swap outs, broken backup drives, etc..I was banking on those backups. And now I can't find anything large enough to hold my main server drive.

Just my whining..

We'll see how it goes tonight

I gave up my extra system so I don't have anything to test it on anymore...

Yeah, they were all there, they've just make them more accessible and easier to use now. Flie duplication was done by default before, now there are dialogs for it. Turning off backups was hard to do before, now it's just an option on a r-click menu. And now you can set retention times on daily, weekly and monthly backup jobs, which will save a lot of space on the server. You'll like the new GUI - it's improved a lot.

I finally got it burned to DVD at work. I won't be home to do this until tomorrow, but I can't wait.

will test it you, though i just installed the ctp, now i gotta installed rc1? i think i wait for rc2

Any screenies guys?

some screens from the install

http://betaarchive.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18150#18150