Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server (codenamed Quattro) is a home server solution developed by Microsoft, based on the Windows Small Business Server 2003 codebase. It aimed to help families back up important information by incorporating a server. It was first released to manufacturing on 16 July 2007 and was made generally available on 4 November 2007. The operating system was short-lived, with support having ended on 8 January 2013. It was eventually succeeded by Windows Home Server 2011, whose functionalities were later integrated into the Essentials edition of Windows Server 2012.

A key functionality of Windows Home Server is the Console, which allows the administrator to configure certain aspects of the server (such as managing computers in a network, viewing the status of disk drives and the ability to create and modify user accounts) through a dashboard application. Users can remotely log onto an online server dashboard, have personal file shares on the server, and can post images to the Internet using an embedded website function — all of which is achieved by using the Home Server Connector software.

Although the kernel reports Windows Home Server as version 5.2, the version in the Home Server Console and the Preinstallation Environment is reported as 6.0.

Along with the launch of Windows Home Server, a children's book titled "Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?" was released to promote the then-new operating system.

Sound scheme
There is a widespread misconception that Windows Home Server shares the same sounds as those of Windows Vista. This has been proven to be false as the operating system is based on Windows Server 2003, which uses the Windows XP sound scheme.