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Data Corruption Issue (946676) Updated

The Microsoft Knowledge Base article 946676 has been updated today regarding When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server.

Microsoft has successfully reproduced corruptions for the following nine programs:

  • Windows Vista Photo Gallery
  • Windows Live Photo Gallery
  • Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
  • Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
  • Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
  • Microsoft Money 2007
  • SyncToy 2.0 Beta
  • Intuit QuickBooks
  • uTorrent

The list has been updated to show which programs have been reported by customers as having caused corruptions. However, Microsoft has not yet been able to reproduce corruptions for the following:

  • Photoshop Elements
  • Zune Software
  • Apple iTunes
  • TagScanner
  • Mozilla Thunderbird
  • Adobe Lightroom
  • Intuit Quicken
  • MS Digital Image Library
  • MP3BookHelper
  • ACDSee
  • WinAmp
  • Windows Media Player 11
  • Microsoft Office Excel
  • Visual DataFlex

It is also stated that you may also experience this issue when you use other programs that are not listed here, as the problem is still being researched. It is still recommended that you do NOT save or edit the program-specific files on the Home Server. But remember this issue ONLY affects Windows Home Server systems that have more than one hard disk drive added to the server storage.

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  1. Paul says:

    Microsoft’s Credibility?

    File Corruption Bug Bites Windows Home Server
    http://www.crn.com/software/205203806

    Technology News: Servers: Microsoft Has a Broken Home
    http://www.technewsworld.com/story/60986.html

    Windows Home Server vulnerable to bug admits Microsoft
    http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=11253

    and… (I’m on a roll) 🙂

    MS Pulls Patches From Windows Update
    http://www.techtree.com/India/News/MS_Pulls_Patches_From_Windows_Update/551-87030-580.html

    Microsoft yanks Vista SP1 update causing endless reboots
    http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=software&articleId=9063479&taxonomyId=18&intsrc=kc_top

    Microsoft: Vista SP1 will break these programs
    http://www.news.com/Microsoft-Vista-SP1-will-break-these-programs/2100-1002_3-6231449.html

    Microsoft turns Server 2008 RTM into Server 2008 SP1
    http://www.weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisewindows/archives/2008/02/exchange_2007_v.html

    Nobody with any brains will fall for this marketing ploy. It may become… “nobody should deploy any MS product before SP2”, if they keep this quality of code up.

    Even the director of project management for Windows Server, Ian McDonald, explained it as “So, it’s [Windows Server 2008] called SP1—in retrospect I should just say it’s called that so you don’t have to wait for SP1 for it to be right like people have before.”

    In truth, customers don’t want all them bugs and errors, and is why they wait for the service pack to patch the initial RTM product.

    Microsoft’s woes with Vista, Server 2008 and WHS aren’t over yet.

  2. Bruce says:

    WHS reports Vista Bitlocker as a raw partition. So WHS doesn’t work with Vista using Bitlocker. Even if it did, Windows Vista’s Bitlocker drive encryption which uses AES in CBC (Cipher Block Chaining) mode is insecure!

    But, now a new report, titled “Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys,” was published by San Francisco Bay Area researchers Seth D. Schoen and William Paul and a team of Princeton researchers that include J. Alex Halderman, Nadia Heninger, William Clarkson, Joseph Calandrino, Ariel Feldman, Jacob Appelbaum and Edward Felten, only adds more concern and worry about the lack of security using Bitlocker to protect your data!

    http://www.citp.princeton.edu/memory
    http://www.crn.com/security/206801225

    Since everyone knows this now, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, we better start insuring our computers are more protected, our software more secure and those selling us their hardware or software to be proven first.

    Business as usual isn’t good enough when 17 year olds such as in Canada can hack 1 million computers. Imagine those with resources with your bank accounts, credit cards, or worse your personal identity!

    How secure is your computer and or server? Especially when connected online 24/7? Who thinks WHS is going to be good enough?

  3. What-A-Joke says:

    WHS data corruption is growing worse and worse and yet still no resolution offered!

    Why cannot Microsoft even test it’s own software? 🙁
    The very business selling $M software hasn’t been able to make it’s own software programs work in WHS.

    Microsoft’s own software “Don’t Work with WHS” List!

    Microsoft Windows Vista Photo Gallery
    Microsoft Windows Live Photo Gallery
    Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
    Microsoft Office OneNote 2003
    Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
    Microsoft Money 2007
    Microsoft Office Excel
    Microsoft Windows Media Player 11
    Microsoft Zune Software
    Microsoft Virtual PC 2008
    Microsoft Digital Image Library

    Note: You may also experience this issue when you use other programs that are not listed here.

    http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/946676

  4. Kevin A. Beares says:

    So, copy the file to your workstation, edit it, and copy it back. Which kind of negates the purpose of shared storage.

  5. Miles says:

    Two MS Project 2000 data files were corrupted on my HP MediaSmart yesterday!

  6. Edney Andrew says:

    Microsoft just can’t seem to get anything right…

    Microsoft decided to “temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update (service pack prerequisite KB937287) to avoid further customer impact (endless Vista reboots) while we investigate possible causes,” wrote Nick White, Microsoft’s product manager.

    …and then, Microsoft on Thursday accidentally released the first service pack (SP1) for Windows Vista to a group of users who were not supposed to receive the update until mid-March.

    I totally agree with how Microsoft’s credibility sucks! Anyone can see this for themselves using their products. Constant patches for endless bugs, service pack applied before released such as for Windows Server 2008, hot patches required immediately without delay, even a power pack for WHS. There’s been the need to patch a patch. The requirement of validating your paid in full with receipt in hand PC with every Windows Update check per the WGA. Talk about a pain in the arse just to afford a product license for use.

    Prediction, Microsoft take over of Yahoo will be a disaster too! In fact, Microsoft will claim bankruptcy if it contends to continue these pitiable and pathetic customer relations of selling consumers beta quality software products.

  7. Boggy says:

    I’ve been trying to keep “cool” about this WHS disaster. I hope that the Microsoft bigwigs realize that these kind of blunders feed into the “reputation” of Microsoft OS being inferior to part-time developed Linux. I am more and more convinced that WHS WAS rushed into market without being properly tested. It seems that Microsoft had known about this issue for a long time, and only acknowledged it after going “live”. I can only see some lawyers getting rich out of this unfortunate situation. The users and the shareholders of Microsoft are going to get screwed.

  8. WHS Devotee says:

    WHS is GREAT. I never had any problems. Check out this good article about WHS and see for yourself what others are saying.

    http://www.blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=791

    Ps. Don’t believe the data corruption glitch, it’s not going to happen to you (in most cases) unless you edit files from your PC on the server. I’m sure Microsoft will have a fix tomorrow.

    Long Live WHS!

  9. Integrity says:

    Microsoft’s Credibility? When Pigs Fly!!! 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁

    Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as “Windows Vista Capable” even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system.

    US District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that the consumers may go ahead with a class action lawsuit against the software company Microsoft over “Vista Capable” advertising program.

    http://www.seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/352442_vista23.html?source=mypi

    WHS isn’t any better to be sold as OEM and RTM versions with a known data corruption flaw in beta which is still unresolved.

    Think about how Microsoft demands it’s paying customers to experience unfinished code full of bugs. Everyone has experienced how buggy Microsoft’s operating systems are! Even the newest and greatest Windows Vista!

    That’s why WHS came into existence, to backup the OS. Only Microsoft’s WHS also needs to be backed up as well, with your backup files too! No joking…

    A backup for the backup! This just shows how nobody cannot expect any Microsoft product to be reliable, as third party devices are required to keep you WHS backed up nice and safe.

    The reason for all these hassles and troubles is because of Microsoft’s war on piracy! That’s what makes Microsoft Windows so much a pain. You cannot install to a mobile device. You’ re not allowed to migrate or transfer easily if at all, such as to a new PC your old operating system.

    Is it any wonder why Microsoft buys, borrows open source code and then works in anti-competitive behavior!!!

    Microsoft’s strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.

    Microsoft’s ideology “extend, embrace, extinguish”!

    Don’t purchase WHS, it’s a wanna be NAS, made as a dumb down appliance.

  10. J says:

    Blimey – all the conspiracy theorists are out today.
    Simple – if you hate MS so much go elsewhere.
    We all know that Apple don’t suffer from any of the litany of faults pointed out above.
    For what it is worth MS are re-writing the drive extender (hence the delay) and should release in spring. They know it is a big issue.

  11. rplenty says:

    What does this mean? “But remember this issue ONLY affects Windows Home Server systems that have more than one hard disk drive added to the server storage.” So is one drive that came with unit ok, but if you added second drive it’s a problem or is it after you add the third drive?

  12. Holly says:

    @rplenty

    It means WHS drive extender technology doesn’t work. One hard drive doesn’t need drive extender code. When you add additional (more than one) HDD, this software code wants to “pool” all your drives into one virtual drive.

    And yes, data corruption is caused by WHS drive extender code!

    WHS is flawed… There’s no fix for KB 946676 either…

  13. Jason says:

    well I have two other programs that are messed up. NannyPay and Quicken Medical Expense Manager.

    I hope they find a resolution soon. Being in the IT Industry I knew it was always bad practice for .PST files to be on the network, but this is crazy.

    While it does not suprise me that it was not discovered by beta testers, it seems to me this would be something that should have been caught by MS QA department on the drive extender technology long ago.

    This is a great product, and if they don’t find a solution soon, it will sour the market since this is a brand new product.

  14. Kirk Vistain says:

    I have WHS running on an HP 745 SmartMedia server. I kicked in the extra $$$ just to get a turnkey package ‘cuz I’m tired of building computers and trying to get everything to work reliably together. But, what is the point of a file server that corrupts files? Especially when it is sold as a device that mirrors and backs up data? I ran Windows Server 2003 for years without any problem. Now I have a MediaSmart server, with what is basically a subset of WS 2003, and it eats date?!?!?!? WTF? I disabled the second drive for now, but if HP and or MS can’t solve this in the next week, I’m just going to bring the thing back to CC and build my own. I would have thought that file serving was a mature technology, but, I’ve been wrong before. Beware! – KV

  15. Kirk Vistain says:

    It eats data, not “date.”

  16. DaHoServer says:

    I worked in and managed software development for many, many years. I find this whole issue, and its ‘resolution’, completely illogical. As has been said, this technology has been around for years, without many siginificant problems. This has been going on for months now. They have identified and can replicate the problems, so they know what they are dealing with. If they have anywhere the size of technical staff required to troubleshoot and resolve this problem as should be committed, this would have been fixed long ago. Something is definetly wrong with all this – It stinks like week old rotten meat.

    Microsoft needs to keep the user community informed of their progress. You can only frustrate folks for so long…

  17. Sara J. Clinton says:

    Even if and when Microsoft does get around to “replacing” the WHS drive extender so called technology, it just means, they sold and released to customers and consumers a flawed, unproven and untested beta product before as RTM final. Normally, RTM is suppose to mean NOT testing quality, but having been TESTED!

    Maybe Microsoft’s outsourcing their Ph.D’s programmers with pretending to be final and complete Ph.D grads?

    How s it even possible that so many of Microsoft’s own applications failed to work with WHS, to be reported only some 9 months later after release of the Beta 100,000 testers?

    What was the 100,000 WHS beta testers for then, right?

    If that wasn’t all, WHS is a static server, totally worthless. Static being you store data NEVER to edit it live form your PC or over the Internet or suffer DATA CORRUPTION.

    I know I want a dynamic server, that allows real time, live editing, creating, streaming and modifying my data if even on a centralized storage system that’s NOT demanding everything be fixed!

    A real server is a dynamic coordinator, administrating functionality with my connected devices, while providing services like real time editing, in live sessions, an email server, all things that share, distribute, correlate, cooperate and connect my devices, be Internet based, LAN or mobile device, etc…

    It’s all about shifting data, per different devices and access to me. What’s the point of locking yourself into a problematic proprietary known as WHS which basically isolates your data to the WHS vault?

    If Windows wasn’t so buggy, there be no need to backup the OS except for hardware failure. However, there’s already a solution for hardware failure, it’s to use RAID 1/5 for that.

    If I cannot TRUST WHS to protect my data, to be told I need a backup of my backup, and that editing my files and data can only be done “only within WHS”, what’s the point?

    It’s NOT even a dumb down home server appliance, but just a failed product flop. Is it any wonder why WHS v2 is expected out soon? So soon, that before KB 946676 gets resolved the new and improved, greatest wow will replace no doubt the old, obsolete and buggy WHS!

  18. Donnie says:

    I believe that I’ve had this same bug happen on my Home server three times. For a while I was using live photo gallery to edit pictures, and I kept getting warnings from the console after that. I would log into the console click the repair button and it would go away. The interesting thing is that my Home Server has just one drive in it.

  19. Jason says:

    WHS is not ready for prime time!

  20. Mike says:

    I have this horrible feeling that they have discovered, or are discovering, that this is an inherent problem with the DE technology and it’s going to require a substantial rewrite of the product.

    Microsoft needs to start being more open and let us know what they are doing to resolve the issue and give us an ETA on the fix.

  21. Backup! at PR’s blog says:

    […] has been going on since the beginning of the year and so far the only update MS can provide is a list of more applications that can cause the problem to […]

  22. Lead Box says:

    I had bought the HP EX475 Preloaded with WHS with two drive, as a 1TB HP MediaSmart product for Christmas. My Wife isn’t very happy at all now, because she can’t edit photos on the home server (for how I sold her on it). It’s basically an $800 automated backup box now.

    How does something like this got through to RTM?

    MS owes every customer a REFUND for selling a very seriously flawed WHS v1.0 product! Otherwise, everyone should motion for yet another class action lawsuit!

    Final RTM software shouldn’t be “at your own risk” to paying customers. Especially, since Microsoft knew about this way before RTM during the initial beta release.

  23. Ron says:

    You know KB 946676 had posted the original publication date as of April 03, 2007. But, later after what was about a month or so, then simply changed this date to December 20, 2007 without any acknowledgment. It wasn’t until about a week or so later that a note about the posted change, but NOT a single word as for how this had happen!

    And another thing, KB 946676 posted at one time, the issue was revolved around the high load of WHS to cause the issue, and then more recently completely removed that fact, without any reasons as to why now this isn’t the case after all!

    Does anyone at Microsoft actually know what their doing?

    It’s time to unplug Microsoft crapware! Or was that bugware, boatware, hiddenware and or randsonware!

  24. Christian Shan says:

    They didn’t even test their own software! 🙁 🙁 🙁

    How could MS even let a product like WHS onto the market?!

    May as well refer to the upcoming WHS v2 called Vail as rather the WHS Vault that prevents your data from being shared, edited and used.

    WHS Vault (v2) = Replacement of WHS v1 “All the Wrong Stuff”!

  25. Wang Lo says:

    It’s not Windows Home Server, it’s Windows Home Backup.

    Apple’s TimeMachine solution is simply easier and better. You don’t need a special server to manage your backups with it.

    WHS isn’t for everyone, if anyone at all…

    A “home” server with built-in data redunancy is a great idea. Of course, having the mechanism that creates the redundancy also creating data corruption is a complete waste of time, effort and money!

  26. Bu 69 says:

    Talk about a dumb down appliance, limited to only the use of just one hard drive only.

    So unless Microsoft fixes this data corruption issue, there is no way to increase memory storage without data corruption worries!!!

    no thanks…

    I’ll purchase a proven Linux solution now! Such as the Excito Bubba Miniserver, or even the QNAP TS-209 Pro. Heck even SYNOLOGY DS-107+ does a better job than WHS!

  27. Angel says:

    The truth is that Windows Home Server has a hellaciously bad data corruption bug that made it into the shipping product.

    And the weakest link of WHS isn’t that it corrupts data, it’s the entirely false sense of security with the false premise of protecting your data using WHS!

    So even if WHS wasn’t corrupting data, it would still be putting your data at risk.

    Is that what you want to pay your hard earned money for?

  28. August Kindl says:

    I spent some time researching data recovery services and started getting a few quotes on how much it would cost to retrieve my data.

    First one I get back – $2,000 starting range.
    Second quote, between $2,500 and $6,000.

    Now, I understand why data corruption isn’t worth using WHS!

    It’s cheaper just to backup using Acronis True Image Echo Workstation, which allows for network backup, USB, 1394, eSATA, DVD, even Blue-ray! And the best part, Windows doesn’t even need to be booted at all!

    Did I mention, with Acronis you can even migrate your Windows OS to a new PC with different hardware. It’s called Universal Restore… “sweet” 🙂

  29. Simen says:

    As I understand, the data corruption issue experienced with some programs (like e.g. Photoshop Elements) only happens when you have more than one hard disk drive installed on the WHS.

    Would hard drivers connected by USB to the WHS count as additional HDD, or would there be no data corruption issue if you only have one internal HDD and one or more connected via USB to the WHS?

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