Microsoft’s Vail becomes Windows Home Server 2011 for RC launch

Following rumours of its completion earlier this week, the next version of Microsoft's Windows Home Server- codenamed Vail - has hit release candidate status and is now available to download.

The OS, which has been renamed Windows Home Server 2011, is the first public version to feature the 'changes' to the storage features that were announced last November. For starters, that means that Drive Extender, one of the hallmarks of the original WHS, is definitely out. To help ease the blow, a Move Folder Wizard has been added, alongside a number of new storage management features.

The Wizard basically makes it easy to move the default location for a certain type of data - say, Recorded TV or Photos - along with all the data to a different drive. Although it would be just as easy to move the data manually, the wizard ensures that the OS knows where to put that sort of data in the future.

There are also new data protection features, including daily Server and PC backup, the ability to restore files to a previous version using Shadow Copy and a 'special protection' feature for specified important folders.

The release candidate for Small Business Server 2011 Essentials - which shares a code base with Vail - has also been released for download.

Windows Home Server 2011 RC can be downloaded now from Microsoft Connect. Even though the removal of Drive Extender is seen by many as a major step backwards, the latest version adds a lot of other features that improve on the original OS.

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Like I said before, without Drive Extender this product is useless.

I won't be upgrading to it.

I watched the demo video and I must say I am little dumbfounded by the shared folder approach.

In WHS v1 I currently have one Movies shared folder which automatically spans many hard drives.

On the new WHS Vail I would assume I would need to create multiple Movie shared folders, possibly one for each drive, all with slightly differing names.

Have I understood correct, as this seems like a pile of pants?

Can't we have virtual shared folders which are made up of n number of physical shared folders underneath, even if you have to configure that bit yourself?

Surely Vail could then work out where best to store the data, and where to acquire it from when requested, it doesn't sound that hard to do, just a simple index with some disk sizing logic would do the trick.

Not interested in upgrading based on Vails backwards storage approach. It's the storage management and backup facility that are the key selling components for WHS everything else like remote logins, streaming functionality are nice to haves.

Thankfully still very happy with WHS v1.

Cant see me upgrading either, the only thing wrong with my WHS box is the poor network performance, and even if they improved that 100x under Vail the removal of drive extender makes the whole thing a bit useless..

The only problem I have is that sometimes when streaming video files they would pause and skip for no apparant reason.

It seems that WHS should have been enabled to know that when someone is doing or watching something that they shouldnt starting transferring files over all the HDD's.

It seems rather than fix the bugs they just took the easy way out and binned it. I'm not going to part my money for a lazy company. Linux can do anything this Vail can. The whole point of WHS was the drive extender as it made everything easy for noobs like me.

For anyone that knows what theya re doing then they would already have linux and wont be swayed by Vail whatsoever.

Still don't agree, DE was unique. No matter how happy you are with RAID and the like, it just doesn't represent a like-for-like solution.

Microsoft’s Vail becomes Windows Home Server 2011 for RC launch

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