Microsoft Seeks Testers For Home Server Patch
According to a post earlier this week on the Windows Home Server team blog, Microsoft intends to launch a final version of the Power Pack 1 in early June and will allow for adequate time for feedback and thorough testing during the beta process.
"The timeline for a final release will depend on feedback and testing, in order to deliver a fix of the highest quality," according to the blog post.
Microsoft announced Power Pack 1 in January at CES and said it would give users more control over Home Server's remote access features and add support for Vista x64 editions. Earlier this month, some Home Server customers and partners were upset by the revelation that Microsoft had cut a feature from Power Pack 1 that would allow them to backup the backup database in Home Server.
Most Microsoft channel partners are still enthusiastic about the potential of Home Server, but some are privately concerned about the fact that Microsoft has yet to publish a fix for the data corruption glitch nearly five months after its discovery.
The Home Server data corruption bug originally surfaced last December when Microsoft warned customers and partners that using Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Office OneNote 2007, Office OneNote 2003, Office Outlook 2007, Money 2007, and SyncToy 2.0 Beta to save files to Home Server could result in their files becoming corrupted.
In February, Microsoft revealed that 14 additional applications could trigger the bug, including Excel, Windows Media Player 11, Zune Software, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Lightroom, Apple iTunes, Mozilla Thunderbird, uTorrent, and WinAmp.
In March, Microsoft announced it had finished coding a fix for the data corruption bug and said the issue lies deep within the innards of Windows Server 2003, upon which Home Server is based.