Testing Windows Server 2016 Essentials Tech Preview 3

[DOS76]

If anyone is interested Windows Server 2016 Essentials TP3 is available to test the install is good until next July. I just finished installing it in Hyper-V on my Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials server. It is a good way to learn about servers and there are a few good forums if you run into any problems on the way (We Got Served and The Home Server Show). Servers feature Remote Access to multiple home computers via RDP gateway and access to all shared files on the server. It also features client computer backup for all client machines. I've used the client restore a few times to fix failed disk or when upgrading to bigger SSD's it works pretty good. Centralized storage is a plus but I wouldn't recommend the built in storage spaces but rather CoveCube's StableBit DrivePool and Scanner for disk pooling and monitoring. While this software is sure to be expensive (the server OS) the preview is for a year and by the time it is over there will most likely be an 180 day eval of the final product which if like past versions will feature two rearms so one can ride this out for a while before having to cough up some dough (and if it is anything like past versions the R2 preview and eval will be out before your rearms are up I've started using Windows Home Server v1 (based off of Server 2003) and quickly moved to WHS2011 (Windows 7) then switched to Server 2012 Essentials (8) during the preview and to R2 Essentials (8.1) in the middle of my second rearm. V1 came on a small Asus server that I bought I then purchased 2011 for $50 hoping to upgrade my box but discovered that the computer only supports 32x cpu's and 2011 required 64 bit OS. After taking the original server offline I installed 2011 on a open box Dell desktop I got for around 300. I now run 2011 on a computer I built and 2012 R2 Essentials on an Asus 5290 with an i7 920 and 16GB of RAM (now 12GB because I just assigned 4GB's to my new VM running Server 2016 Essentials). If any one is interested I suggest giving it a try and if you have any questions I maybe able to help.

Spoiler