14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since Microsoft made the first bits of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3 for testing in mid 2007, questions related to the final availability date inherently followed.
The Redmond company offered nothing concrete in this regard, simply pointing to the first quarter and the first half of 2008 for the release of Vista SP1 and XP SP3 respectively. While Vista is the last Windows client to come out of Redmond, Microsoft has since produced another operating system, coming from the server-side but still aimed at home consumers, debuting the home servers product category. Windows Home Server's official launch was on November 5, 2007.
But ahead of that date, in early October, Microsoft answered questions related to the availability of Windows Home Server, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP Sp3 via MSDN. The Redmond company promised that both Vista SP1 and XP SP3 would become available via Subscriber Downloads at a short time after they would be released to manufacturing. Additionally, subscribers could look forward to the inclusion of Windows Home Server as as MSDN offering. At that time, the MSDN acquisition team was negotiating with the product group to deliver Windows Home Server via the MSDN Subscription program.
The fact that at that time, despite that Windows Home Server has RTMed and even launched, Microsoft failed to offer an estimate of when the operating system would go to MSDN offered a preview of was to come. The company confirmed at the beginning of this week that Windows Home Server will not be joining Vista SP1 and XP SP3 anytime soon on MSDN.
"[There have been questions related to when Windows Home Server would be available on MSDN Subscriber Downloads. I indicated [last year] that discussions were still underway, but that it looked promising that it wold be added. Unfortunately it is not going to be made available for MSDN Subscribers at this time, based on additional discussions between the Product Group and the Subscriptions Teams. I don't have any first hand knowledge of what went into this decision, but understand several of you will be disappointed by the decision. As you are aware, it might be added in the future, but it is not being included at this time," revealed a member of the MSDN Subscription program.