Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server (code-named Quattro) is a home server operating system from Microsoft. It was announced on 7 January 2007 at the Consumer Electronics Show by Bill Gates, released to manufacturing on 16 July 2007 and officially released on 4 November 2007. Windows Home Server was based on Windows Server 2003 R2 and was intended to be a solution for homes with multiple connected PCs to offer , automated backups, print server, and remote access. It is paired with the Windows Home Server Console—client software accessed from another computer on the network to provide a graphical management interface. Power Pack 1 for Windows Home Server was released on 20 July 2008. Power Pack 2 was released on 24 March 2009 and Power Pack 3 was released on 24 November 2009. Windows Home Server 2011, the next version of this operating system, was released on 6 April 2011. Microsoft confirmed Windows Home Server 2011 to be last release in the Windows Home Server product line. Windows Home Server was the brainchild of Charlie Kindel who was the General Manager for the product from 2005 through 2009. Microsoft has ended support for Windows Home Server on January 8, 2013. 10 computers and 10 users: Allows a maximum of ten user accounts to be created on the server console and ten computers to have WHS connector installed, without any client access licenses. Centralized backup: Allows backup of up to 10 PCs, using Single-instance storage technology to avoid multiple copies of the same file, even if that file exists on multiple PCs. Health monitoring: Can centrally track the health of all PCs on the network, including antivirus and firewall status. File sharing: Creates and operates network shares for computers to store the files remotely, acting as a network-attached storage device. Separate categories are provided for common file types like Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. The files are indexed for fast searching. Printer sharing: Allows a print server to handle print jobs for all users.