Windows 7 and Windows Home Server

The Windows Home Server team is excited to see the progress and excitement around the public beta release of Windows 7

From the Windows 7 Beta Download "How to Backup a PC" page, you will see this important note near the bottom of the page.

Note: The backup methods described here do not preserve installed programs—only data. When the Windows 7 Beta expires on August 1, 2009, you'll need to reinstall a prior version of Windows or a subsequent release of Windows 7 before the expiration date, as well as any previously-installed programs.

You can read about installing the Windows Home Server Connector software on a PC running Windows 7 over at HomeServerHacks. But before you update a PC to Windows 7, you should install the Connector software and backup your machine to your home server, so you have an image-based backup that you can return to for testing the upgrade scenario with future builds of Windows 7.

 

If you run into a bug with using the Windows Home Server Connector on the beta release of Windows 7, please let the home server team know through our Connect site. A few people have notified us that we incorrectly display "Windows Vista ..." for the operating system name in the Windows Home Server Console and the Windows Home Server Remote Access page - we already have a fix in the works for those bugs.

 

The Windows Home Server automated image-based backup and restore solution works with PCs running Windows XP and Windows Vista today, and should also work with Windows 7. Please download the Windows 7 beta and try it out ... let us know if you have any issues.

 

t.

 

p.s. If you don't have a home server yet, now might be a good time to get going ....