Microsoft News Tracker

Joel at the Windows Server Division Weblog has the details on the Beta 2 release of Windows Home Server:

Windows Home Server has reached the Beta 2 milestone! While previous releases have been tested by 1000+ Microsoft employees and some of our hardware and software partners, we are now starting to invite a broader group of external testers to participate in Beta 2.

People interested in participating in Beta 2 can register here so we have their names as we steadily expand the program. We can’t guarantee you’ll be invited to participate right away (or at all), but if you’re interested get yourself registered. Most consumers will ultimately buy Home Server as an integrated hardware/software solution…
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You can participate in the Beta 2 dialogue on the public Windows Home Server Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer . The Windows Home Server team and other participants will answer questions and provide insights there.

More details by following the links. The bloom is off the rose on this one from my point of view ever since it became clear that Microsoft wasn’t going to make it easy to roll your own backup server, but instead were relying on OEMs to sell the complete package.