Windows Home Server Bug Could Lead To Data Loss

InformationWeek ^ | 31DEC07 | Thomas Claburn

[familyop]

A flaw in Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Windows Home Server could lead to data loss under certain circumstances, the company has confirmed.

Windows Home Server, released over the summer, aims to offer home users centralized media storage and home backup capabilities for networked PCs.

Microsoft last week updated a support document acknowledging that files edited using certain programs and then stored on Windows Home Server could become corrupted.

"Microsoft is researching this problem and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available," the Microsoft help documentation explains. "Until an update for Windows Home Server is available, we recommend that you do not use the programs that are listed in this article to save or to edit program-specific files that are stored on a Windows Home Server-based system."

The listed programs are as follows: Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money 2007, and SyncToy 2.0 Beta.

The issue was acknowledged in October, when Microsoft warned "not to copy data files that contain alternate [NTFS] data streams to Windows Home Server shared folders." Microsoft offers free software called Streams to determine whether NTFS files have alternate data streams associated with them.

Microsoft also says that some users have reported problems with Torrent applications, Intuit Quicken, and QuickBooks program files and that it is attempting to reproduce those issues.

Microsoft says that file corruption can occur under circumstances when a home server is under extreme loads, as might happen when copying large numbers of files, when a user is editing files already saved to a shared folder on the home server, and when a user is using one of the listed programs to edit files on a home server.

[ShadowAce]

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Samba does the same thing, works great, isn't a crippled version of anything, and is free.

[familyop]

That was posted with NetBSD, BTW, which shows that I’m not a “professional.” ;-)

[American Quilter]

I thought of you when I read the thread's title--and then realized you had posted it!

How are things in the mountains?

[familyop]

Samba’s good. I like using Xen (free, fast hardware virtualization thingie) and VNC viewers...makes one legitimate, Windows Cheap Edition system go a long way. ;-)

[familyop]

"How are things in the mountains?"

Hi! How are you doing? I hope that you're seeing the sun during this dark time of year.

Things are cold and busy up here. It was like summer--strange--until this month, though. We're all going to work by spring. The head hunters (recruiters, temp. offices) in your neighborhood say that only Java and C# are in demand, and that defense contractors only want people who already have clearances (instead of people who can get them). That town reminds me of college towns in the Midwest--really laid back. ...must be all of that easy .gov funding. Heh.

So we'll have to do the consulting and marketing stuff ourselves (C++, Python, Unix or Windows).

[familyop]

You also have a private message. Let us know how things are going for you. We only get down that way once in a great while.

[dayglored]

> Samba does the same thing, works great, isn't a crippled version of anything, and is free.

Samba rocks. I use it all over the place on my work and home networks.

What I can't understand is, Windows Home Server is a dumbed-down version of Server 2003, which does not have these problems. I have 2003 servers all over at work and they run fine.

So what's up Microsoft? How did you break it? This is not "innovation"... this is the stupidest "step on your own d!ck" product I've seen from MS in years!

Well, maybe Vista...

[Eagles2003]

“A flaw in Microsoft ...”

Does anyone have to read further?

If we didn’t have the limp boys from Microsoft maybe we would have an OS that worked. Might save us billions in productivity.

[rmlew]

Worst "feature" since printing error in Word 2 for the mac!

Didn't they do beta testing?
Screw that, did it not occure to them that consumers might want to edit files on a server and use it like a server? If the goal was a NAS, we can buy them for much less. Heck, I can add a hard drive to my router.

[CarrotAndStick]

MacBook Pro (2.0 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB of RAM)
Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.0)

Massive Data Loss Bug in Leopard
November 5th, 2007

Update: The bug occurs regardless of the type of destination being moved to (whether it’s local USB, local Firewire, SMB, etc.). Also, I have been informed that this bug goes back all the way to Panther.

Update 2: Here’s a video of the same thing happening to a USB drive: http://tomkarpik.com/pub/leopardmovebug.avi

Update 3: Robert Rodgers adds: “I accidently chmod’d a directory while a massive (40+GB) file move was being copied into it to be -w by me, files went ‘poof’.”

Leopard’s Finder has a glaring bug in its directory-moving code, leading to horrendous data loss if a destination volume disappears while a move operation is in action. I first came across it when Samba crashed while I was moving a directory from my desktop over to a Samba mount on my FreeBSD server.

I’ve now run tests on a Windows XP SP2 SMB mount, as well as a local HFS+ formatted USB drive, and the bug surfaces every time the destination disappears while the Finder is moving something to the destination.

Details

http://tomkarpik.com/articles/massive-data-loss-bug-in-leopard/

[familyop]

"If the goal was a NAS, we can buy them for much less. Heck, I can add a hard drive to my router."

A large capacity, fast NAS can be extremely cheap with RAID (even cheaper with CMU RAIDFrame), plenty of SATA lines and a cabinet with good cooling (and PCI express for extra sata and net bandwidth).