Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows Home Server

Microsoft has announced that no new editions of Windows Home Server will be released. Instead of the operating system for home servers, the company releases an ‘Essentials’ version of the regular Windows Server.

That can be read in two new FAQ documents from Microsoft about the different editions of the upcoming server operating system. The new Windows Server 2012 Essentials is based on the code of Windows 8 and is primarily intended for small businesses without a large IT department. The server OS comes with twenty-five user licenses.

In terms of features, Essentials is a combination of Windows Small Business Server 2011 and Windows Home Server 2011. The software uses cloud services from Microsoft for certain functionality. For example, Exchange Server is no longer built in; for email services, users can run a separate Exchange server, but Microsoft seems to be emphasizing its Office 365 cloud service.

From the Home Server edition, some features have been transferred to Essentials, such as the built-in server for media streaming via dlna. It is not yet known whether things like the dashboard and remote web login will also be part of Essentials. The merged edition should cost about $425, more than ten times the current price for Windows Home Server 2011. It will allow up to twenty-five users, or a total of fifty devices, to connect to the server: Home Server limited that number to ten.