Windows Home Server v2 set to offer Time Machine-like backup UI, Media Center and Live Mesh integration

Either Microsoft is always severely understaffed or developers can’t stick around for more than one release cycle. Nevertheless the coolest and most under-appreciated product from Microsoft – Windows Home Server is looking for a software development engineer to work on a couple interesting features for the next major release. And there’s nothing better that recruits the brightest and the best than a job posting that teases like this one posted today.

On the heels of a tremendous reception by customers for version 1 of Windows Home Server, the team just released power pack 1 last week, and is beginning the planning of the next big release. To staff up a rock solid team for delivering the top notch UI for the next release, we are looking for a developer with a strong passion for slick UI. You would be responsible for designing and coding the very visible and highly confidential UI capabilities that we are adding to Windows Home Server. Just to give a couple of examples – Time Machine compete (sp?) UI for backup and restore, Windows Media Center integration UI, Live Mesh integration UI etc.. are three of the top UI deliverables for our next version. Yes, we are positioning ourselves as THE backup and Media Server within the home by this release. We do not take UI lightly and have assembled a team that will bring the concept of ‘servers’ into the home with rave reception by both analysts and consumers.

What’s more interesting is that they’re also looking for someone with “solid working experience in WPF & XAML, WinForms, and Win32” and “Silverlight application development experience is a plus”, indicating there might be some possibility these new user interfaces will be based off Windows Presentation Foundation for both the desktop application and browser management experience.

I don’t know about you but the next version of Windows Home Server is sounding pretty “rave” to me already.

Update: Not exactly sure what they mean by “Time Machine compete UI”. You could either interpret it as a “Time Machine-like UI” for backup and restore or “Time Machine integration UI” so WHS can integrate with Time Machine.

Update 2: From the looks of it what they mean is actually a “Time Machine like” user interface for browsing and restoring backups.

16 insightful thoughts

  1. That’s great! Microsoft DO listen to feedback! The Media Center interface was clearly missing from Windows Home Server. Live Mesh is still in its infancy, I wonder if they’ll integrate it after it’s completed. And the time machine UI.
    Taking clue from this, I wont be surprised if Windows 7 gives tough competition to the macs n linuxes out there.

  2. I think you may have read that wrong. It’s not TIme Machine-like, it’s just better Time Machine integration. As far as I know, WHS already works with Time Machine, as I remember that being mentioned back before it’s release. But maybe I have it wrong.

  3. Sounds to me like they are saying they want UI that competes with the time machine UI. Understandable as people oooh and aaah about time machine all the time even though it is functionally inferior to what Windows and home server have.

  4. That type of pizazz just for a backup server? Sounds like paranoia to me. Time Machine looks pretty and all, but functional wise its not really important. I like Vista Ultimate’s straightforward approach to backup, its simple and gets to the point.

  5. The team was talking about thinking about Time Machine integration a while back…

    Another feature I would like to see is Zune integration; but perhaps that would be on the side of the Zune’s sync program?

  6. These ads might be for some other reason than for the position itself. The company has to put out an ad before sponsoring a green card for an H1B employee.

  7. MS is always trailing the pack.
    MS demand no piracy, however do not provide any real support when it comes to the plentiful of problems.
    When do they truly align the various applications in the MS office package?
    Etc Etc

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