DE Removal from Vail – The Community Responds
After yesterdays announced from Microsoft regarding dropping Drive Extender from Windows Home Server Vail, the community responded. On that post over 150 comments were left with the majority asking why?, with comments such as “You know it is not April 1st, right?”. Headlines appeared on websites around the web such as this one: "Microsoft sh**s on Windows Home Server users..". Even Windows Home Server MVP Alex Kuretz asked the question "..Is Windows Home Server Dead?".
Facebook had an MVP write "Windows Home Server Codename Vail without Drive Extender? More like Codename Fail”, whilst Twitter got a new hash tag of #VailFail.
Angry Windows Home Server users have now started to sign a petition on the Windows Home Server “Vail” beta site on Microsoft Connect to bring back Drive Extender which already has over 1000 votes at the time of writing.
Microsoft responded to the outrage by publishing another blog post explaining in more detail why this decision was made, basically stating that support for hardware RAID solutions, application compatibility and data portability was needed in SBS 2011 Essentials and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials which naturally meant Vail as well, so DE was pulled.
Lots of the community are saying that they are sticking with v1 for as long as possible and that they will not recommend anyone to purchase Vail – Will You?
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Microsoft shouldn’t be attempting to develop a consumer product in line with business products, they clearly have very different requirements. Vail should be developed on it’s own.
It’s just Microsoft trying to reduce development costs by bundling the 3 products together.
Microsoft prooving that business come before consumer
I wont be upgrading to Vail. The DE for me as a professional photographer allows me expand my storage without needing an IT degree. I buy enough storage that the idea of having to buy PArtner products doesnt really stack up.
Microsoft.. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Actually I dont care. Its either a monumental screw up from a pr standpoint, or its an engineering fail.. take you pick, either scenario is less than appealing..
Oh and while you are at. PUT MEDIA CENTRE IN WHS, How hard can it be?
So I guess they want to take the ‘Home’ out of Windows Home Server? Last time I checked most home users did not want or need “support for hardware RAID solutions, application compatibility and data portability”. There are good reasons not to deal with RAID in the home environment yet we still need data duplicated across multiple drives for protection.
It sounds like the message from MS is that WHS is to become a business product and home users should just go find another solution.
Like i said, i’ll stick with V1 as long as possible then i’ll let Micros@$%t sell their Windows “Home” Server to the ppl they actually want to ….. small buisnes.
They should really change the name though, i am saying that knowing full well that they don’t care.
I did run my server on Ubuntu Server 10.4 at one point, more complicated to setup but works well and it’s free 🙂