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 ....
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Lots of great news and blog posts about Windows Home Server appeared over the last week.  I thoughtAnonymous
January 01, 2003
Yesterday marked the availability of the Windows 7 Release Candidate .  On the Engineering WindowsAnonymous
January 01, 2003
Got my connector installed without indecent. Now today I want to open a backup and it gets to 81% (every time 81%) and it says "Cannot connect to the backup service on the server. Verify that all services are running." They are working as I can connect from an XP client, just not my Windows 7 laptop. Checking the even viewer on a crash, there are bitlocker issues: "Metadata initial read: Primary metadata record on volume Z: could not be found. Volume needs recovery." Still trying to figure it out.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
The comment has been removedAnonymous
January 01, 2003
I was definitely excited about being able to do a complete backup just before trying out Windows 7, knowing that I can easily revert. (Of course some will point out Virtual Machines but I like a direct hands on real world experience when testing out this hardware, including full 3D acceleration...) WHS mostly works fine for me in Windows 7 Beta x86 though there is one bug, which I have submitted. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get x64 to work so I can't test WHS on that!Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I am seeing the very same error indications as posted by "kingston" except for the fact that I was able to successfully open a backup the first time I tried but it failed the second and subsequent times. The backup itself is good since I am still able to open it from my Vista PC. Once the error occurs the only way to get it to work again (at least once) is to reintall Windows 7. Not so nice! Has there been any progress in getting this problem sorted out?Anonymous
January 01, 2003
...Incidently, it's not working on the Laptop either any more. I can't open any back up from either machine now (I've tried a restart). So, something's wrong. I'm also getting a can't Mount Backup error on the laptop...Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I have the same error after i mount my backup once, i cannot mount it again. I am running Windows Home Server with all the patches, and Windows 7, Build 7000. What options do I have to access my files? i really need my backup! ThanksAnonymous
January 01, 2003
For x64 version of Windows 7, you xan install WHS Connector by running in a command prompt (with administrator privilege): msiexec /i "\WHSSERVERSoftwareHome Server Connector Softwarewhsconnector_x64.msi" WHSMSI="RUNSETUP" Replace WHSSERVER according to your configuration ;-)