Over at the WinHEC 2007 website, Powerpoint presentations have been published from each session held back in May, including one entitled, “Windows Home Server - Overview and Opportunity”.
The presentation is just that - an overview of what and who Windows Home Server is targeting, along with a call to action for the industry to get involved.
There were a couple of interesting things in the presentation, however, which I’ll pick out.
Services
As your Home Server is always on, and connected to the Internet, Web Services could take advantage of this and push content both from your server into the cloud (Internet), and push content from the cloud into your home - your server could then distribute it to all local PCs. That could be anything - simple content, like News and Weather, through to Windows Updates, Movie/TV/Music downloads, you name it.
As the buzz grows around Web Services, Windows Home Server looks well placed to take advantage.
OEM Hardware Requirements
The OEM Hardware Requirements were spelled out very clearly, with detail on what’s required to get the WHS Logo and what’s not allowed. Here’s the breakdown:
| Required | Not Allowed |
| 1.2 > GHz equivalent x86 CPU | Wireless Network Adaptor |
| 1 Internal Hard Drive (80Gb Minimum) with toolless expansion facilities | Video Connector |
| 512Mb Minimum RAM | Optical Drive |
| 1 Gigabit Network Card | Keyboard and Mouse Ports |
| 4 External USB Ports | RS-232 and Parallel Ports |
| 30db or less noise emission |
I discussed some of the implications of these requirements in a previous post - certainly the lack of an optical is going to create some interesting challenges when it comes to installing software and potentially reinstalling Windows Home Server (let’s hope it arrives robust at RTM!) One thing I didn’t pick up on was the noise emission requirements, great to see that all OEM machines will have to be very quiet to get the logo.
So, if you want a quick taster of what’s to come (or you just want to check out Charlie’s Powerpoint skills), then download the Powerpoint.
Note: The file is in Powerpoint 2007 format - you’ll be prompted to install a conversion/viewer application if you do not have Powerpoint 2007 installed.
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