ajuhawk

September 10, 2008 at 6:06am

MCE Integration... I use SageTV, so I have this today and don't have to worry about M$ putting any DRM on the files I save.  3 tuners and Showanalyzer all running on my homemade WHS box working like a champ.  Plan to expand this once I finish remodelling my house and get all my systems and extenders put in place.

A few features that would mean something:

• Automated (i.e. scheduled) backup of the server to external drives (this is currently a manual process)
• Speed up the client application (takes forever to connect)
• Speed up the file restore interface (very slow)
• Improve the system monitor (for clients) feature set
• Agree with the comment about the master drive being an issue (mine claims to have issues about once a month that require a repair...then it seems to be ok)
• 64-bit OS would be nice

willsmith

September 09, 2008 at 11:04pm

I'd like to see streaming support for all the formats that the Xbox 360 understands. Specifically, MP4 support for the Connector interface. Right now, I'm having to disable Windows Media Connect in favor of a more functional UPNP server because connect doesn't know what to do with the MP4 container.

Gnata

September 09, 2008 at 3:52pm

Let me first say that I haven't used WHS since the beta, though I have tried to keep up on all the updates.  So I apologize if anything has already been fixed that I was unaware of.

I'd really like to see some functional improvements in their disk spanning technology.  The limitations caused by the "master" drive are highly frustrating.  It would also be nice to see (approaching) RAID 0 performance for non-redundant data.

The Media Center UI integration is an obvious must, though I have a hard time seeing them including TV tuner support as that significantly increases the system requirements for the box.  At the very least, integrated support for recording from a Tuner on another PC directly to the Home Server's storage and media library.

Integration with the OfficeLive services would be fantastic.  Why only have a (limited?) URL for remote access when you can get a custom URL and email!  Microsoft is already providing the services so it seems to make sense to integrate them.

A Wake-on-LAN console would be great so that the rest of your PCs (that support WOL) could use power save modes but still be accessed directly.  That, or just have WHS automtically send a magic packet to machines that don't respond to the remote desktop client.

There's now a Windows Live Family Protection offering (content filtering, etc.)  Centralized management and reporting would be good.  Maybe centralized anti-virus/malware, too.

And I have to agree, roaming profiles would be an easy, and big win.

mav100

September 09, 2008 at 3:07pm

Media Center wise: 

So will this mean that M$ is actually planning on getting WHS set up so we can use it as a TV Tuner farm and share video around our networks?  I hope so...

Now if they only do something regarding the lack of HD tuner availabilty for anyone but OEMs...

And another idea:

How about roaming profiles on home networks?