It is paired with the Windows Home Server Console—client software accessed from another computer on the network to provide a graphical management interface.

Users (specifically those who configure a family's home server) dealt with storage at two levels: Shared Folders and Disks.

This was in contrast with Windows' Logical Disk Manager which requires a greater degree of technical understanding in order to correctly configure a RAID array.

[22] A known limitation of Drive Extender was that it in some cases changed timestamp of directories and files when data was moved around between disks.

The aforementioned programs worked fine with WHS; however, files may have appeared out of order due to this caveat.

Criticism of Drive Extender's removal mainly related to it being seen as a core feature of Windows Home Server and a key reason for adoption.

[23] As a replacement for Drive Extender, Microsoft stated that OEMs would use RAID on their Windows Home Server products.

The system also offers an SSL secured web browser based interface over the Internet to the shared file stores.

[25] The release version offers access to the web interface via a free Windows Live-provided URL, which uses Dynamic DNS.

[19] The system also supports Terminal Services Gateway, allowing remote control of the desktop of any Windows computer on the home network.

[29] Integration of the file sharing service as a location for Mac OS X's Time Machine was apparently being considered,[30] but upon Mac OS X Leopard's release, Apple had removed the ability to use the SMB file sharing protocol for Time Machine backups.

Dedicated devices will have the operating system pre-installed and may be supplied with a server recovery disk which reloads the OS over a network connection.

[35] The flaw led to data corruption only when the server was under heavy load at the time when the file (with ADS) was being saved onto a share.

[36] Even though the issue was first acknowledged in October 2007,[37] Microsoft formally warned users of the seriousness of the flaw on 20 December 2007.

Power Pack 1 added the ability to back up files stored on the Shared Folders, to an external drive.

Backing-up of the client backup database is available either manually using the instructions provided by Microsoft on page 24 of this document or can be done using the WHS BDBB add-in written by Alex Kuretz and available from this website.

While some hardware manufacturers have developed dedicated boxes,[38] Microsoft has also released Windows Home Server under the OEM/System Builder license.