Should You Get Windows Home Server?
alphaxion should have been a happy customer:
Do you have the same thought as I do when it comes to the windows home server product in that their fear of losing small business server sales has caused them to miss a big opportunity to bring about some very cool parental control or even just user control with simple active directory functions (restricted logon times, roaming profiles) and the sheer capacity that group policy has (it would have to be in a super user friendly mega wizardised interface tho) to restrict and limit a user in what they can do.
If they also did a cust down module of ISA that you could purchase and simply “plug in” to the server and provide a web proxy without needing massive amounts of knowledge, you could have a means for restricting and monitoring your kids browsing habits.Instead none of this will make it into WHS and it’ll be nothing more than an overpriced password sync, file storage, backup and “network health monitoring” device.. of which the health monitoring section will prolly cause loads of confusion and/or just get ignored (which of course can still potentially happen to the points I raised).
I also tried to get my hands on an evaluation version of WHS to see what it was like but they were wanting to charge me to have it shipped my way (why they can’t offer it as a downloadable iso file like most other items I don’t know).
I used their feedback form to suggest to them that they should enable ISO download for this because I refuse to pay $10 for an evaluation version of software, regardless of if that is to cover shipping fees or not. I got an email back from them telling me that it wasn’t available outside of the US.. I then got a further email apologizing for the incorrect info given in the previous email and they proceeded to tell me “it’s not the software you’re paying for but the shipping”.. so they never bothered to listen to my “I don’t want to pay any money for any evaluation software, I would like to download it rather than waste time and resources on a physical version being shipped to me!
Utterly useless!
I’d be interested in knowing what your take on windows home server is and if you see it the way I do – why bother spending all that money on what is essentially a backup device (especially when online backup services offer greater protection at cheaper prices, tho from what I’ve read the backup procedure is pretty slick.. never underestimate a slick interface for getting users to do something like this) when it isn’t capable of a fraction of the potential it could have had.
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