RSSMicrosoft addresses data corruption with WHS Power Pack beta
By Tim Conneally | Published June 10, 2008, 11:38 PM
Microsoft has released a public beta of the first Windows Home Server update in order to show the world it has finally fixed an embarrassing data corruption bug it discovered six months ago and has been trying to correct since.
The public beta of Home Server Power Pack 1 is intended to help the Windows Home Server team "prove we fixed 'the bug'" that plagued the product's initial launch last year. The "bug" in question was a data corruption issue that occurred when certain programs were used to edit or transfer files stored on a Windows Home Server-based computer that has more than one hard drive.
Applications involved with the issue include: Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Office OneNote 2003 and 2007, Office Outlook 2007, Money 2007, SyncToy 2.0 Beta, Intuit's QuickBooks, and uTorrent.
Solving the problem proved to be quite an expansive task for Microsoft, according to developer Bulat Shelepov, involving a complete rewrite of the storage subsystem for Windows Home Server.
During that time, features were also added to the product, including: support for Windows Vista x64 editions, backup of Home Server shared folders, improved remote access capabilities and energy efficiency, and Chinese and Japanese language versions.
This release is another example of Microsoft extending its "dogfooding" to a larger scale, in which it enlists the help of as many people as possible to run through a series of test scenarios to guarantee desirable results. Developer Charlie Kindel wrote on the Windows Home Server blog that, "I am confident we'll get enough testers. The only remaining question is how quickly those testers download the bits and start testing them."
The final release of Power Pack 1 won't be made available until "the community has validated our work," Kindel added. Microsoft doesn't want to make yet another snafu by releasing the update and continuing to have data corruption issues with certain applications, especially considering how long it has taken to locate and correct the bug.
At Microsoft Connect, both an update package applicable to existing Windows Home Servers and an updated DVD and CD ISO images of an evaluation version of Windows Home Server with Power Pack 1 have been made available. The team has advised users running the Release Candidate on a "production" home server to make a full backup prior to getting started.
This public beta releases the release candidate build of the Power Pack 1 of WHS. I don't see how this is an alpha build as this build is feature-complete.
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I don't use alpha products. This product is still alpha.
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Please, justify your statement properly. Two sentences with a false declaration of facts doesn't really paint you anything other than a biased hater.
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Watchout mjm, next he will be threatening you with more ghetto speak such as 'talking to the hand'. LOL!
And as far as being a "biased hater", it seems to be a pretty sensible behavior.
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Yeah!
How dare anyone ask a troll to back up their BS!
*laughs*
You guys kill me...
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During that time, features were also added to the product, including: support for Windows Vista x64 editions, backup of Home Server shared folders, improved remote access capabilities and energy efficiency, and Chinese and Japanese language versions.
"backup of Home Server shared folders" is not a new feature. Folder duplication has been a major feature since it's conception. Perhaps you are referring to the "backup database" backup?
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No, I think this is from MSFT themselves - check their rel notes. I don't quite get the point either. It looks like in addition to shadow copy they introduce regular backup of shared folders. Seems a waste of time to me to code this. What I really want is a TS gateway over HTTPS...
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Actually it is a new feature. Basically it's like this:
Plug in an external (or even an internal) drive. When you're in the process of adding it, it will ask you to either use it for internal pool or for backing up the server's folders. This will allow you to backup the server data itself to a different disk for offsite storage. It's not folder duplication in the sense you're thinking.
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Seems like a bit of overkill for a consumer product, IMO, but hey...
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I agree, if you wanted offsite backup of data, why not just pay for a service and have it sent up the wire across the net...
Or here's a more novel idea: burn it to DVD! lol
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I find this MSFT quote the most amusing: "We will not ship the final release of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 until the community has validated our work."
Are we talking blackmail? MSFT will not release this thing unless enough *customers* agree to install and test a pre? Has MSFT gone mental? They want users to 'back up shared folders' before install. Sounds reasonable but we are talking about a file server that many people have upped to a few TB storage! What's in it for the users who invest time, money and resources and take the risk? Ridiculous....
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I believe they are referring to the beta testers that agreed to test the software. I got a notification to download the update the other day.
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I got the note too (afaik anyone can sign up as a beta tester for WHS) but no way I am agreeing to this. This would be acceptable for an Open Source project but I am extremely disappointed in MSFT (a huge corporation with huge resources) not to staff this commercial product appropriately to do a full QA - after taking >1/2 year to fix a file corruption bug on a file server! I really see no excuse.
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I don't see what your feathers are ruffled about? Pretty much all software nowadays goes through a beta test. It is pretty much standard procedure...
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Bill Gates should ask for either Steve Ballmer's resignation on his desk or his head on a plate.
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Many people beta tested SP's in the past. There is no better way then test on different configurations then the general public that agreed to beta test. Isn't that the way companies learn about issues is beta? That is the idea after all.
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'Dogfooding' is not a wide beta test.
It is when you use your own product.
Comes from when the guys on the line would grab a handful of dry dog food and snack on it to make sure the quality was good.
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Aha! I was wondering what that meant.
Makes much more sense now.
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It's embarrassing indeed. Yet when Apple's recent update corrupted data, people were much more forgiving.
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Data corruption? LOL!
And here I thought that was a security feature assuring that miscreants couldn't access one's data without authorization...
There they go taking all the fun out of computing!
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Data corruption isn't always done with human intervention.
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