Mac users will certainly be delighted with Microsoft's latest move.

Microsoft recently released the current test version of their home server product. Using the code-name Vail, the said server software will now be able to manage and backup Macs. Aside from announcing Vail's availability last August 16, Microsoft also released the updated test version of the new Aurora small business server.

Aurora will allow businesses to handle tasks such as printing server functions on a local server and tapping into Microsoft's hosted Web services. The said business server will also have Mac support. Plans for Aurora were revealed last month in the Worldwide Partner Conference. The Windows Home Server, on the other hand, is designed to backup and manage multi-computer systems at home. This mostly refers to multi-Windows PC homes.

Both Aurora and Vail are based on the same platform, Windows Server 2008 R2. Aurora, however, allows up to 25 users compared to Vail's 10. This does not mean that Aurora is the better version of Vail, though. Vail has something that Aurora do not have. Vail is capable of media streaming, otherwise known as Media Center integration.

Designing softwares that have Mac support has been requested by a lot of customers using the Windows Home Server. Among the features Vail boasts of are support for machines using Mac OS X Leopard or higher, remote Web access, support for add-ins, and alerts.

Aside from the Mac support, users can also make use of Vail's other features. Vail's latest build include alert email integration, Silverlight 4 support for media, and an SDK Preview that provides API references, how-to buidl add-in documents, templates for Visual Studio 2010 and samples of complete add-ins.

The Windows Home Server and the Small Business Server betas can be downloaded from the Microsoft Connect site. Windows, however, had not mentioned any expected release date for the final versions of either Aurora or Vail.