I was just mentioning to someone via email this morning that my understanding of the WHS corruption issue was that it only affects files that you edited live from the server (that is, the files you're editing in the affected application are sitting on the server at the time of editing). If that was the case, and I thought it was, then I was OK: I just use the WHS for backup and edit things locally. Ed Bott explains why this is indeed the case:
I asked a senior member of the Windows Home Server team for more details yesterday. Here’s what I learned:
This is not an issue that affects every Windows Home Server installation, and the symptoms require several factors that are not mentioned in the KB article. The largest contributing factor is when a home server is under extreme load. If you’re doing a large, highly demanding file copy operation in the background and you’re using one of the listed applications to edit a file that’s stored on a shared folder on the home server, and you save the edited file to the server, then you might see this bug.
Backups stored on a Windows Home Server are completely safe, as are files copied to the server for safekeeping or streaming. This issue affects only files that are saved directly from one of the listed applications to a shared folder on a Windows Home Server.
I fully expect the current bug to be patched fairly quickly now that a repro case is available. Meanwhile, it pays to be conservative and heed the advice of that KB article, even if the odds are relatively low that this particular bug will strike you.
As usual, a nice job there by Ed. And some welcome good news about WHS.
