Digital Home Thoughts: Windows Home Server, Why Do You Continually Fail Me?

Through a series of weird circumstances, I decided that one of my my PCs - the one I use for my main media storage and TV viewing - needed to be restored. I figured that since I have my handy HP Windows Home Server, it would be easy enough to get the boot CD, restore from a backup earlier in the month, and keep rocking. Boy was I wrong!

When I booted from the restore CD, I was shocked to see that the network card on my Intel DP35DP motherboard wasn't detected. This isn't some esoteric motherboard - it's a plain old Intel board with an Intel 82566DC Gigabit Ethernet Controller. I've had this exact problem once before with another system, but this time I was hoping I'd be able to get it to work: I clicked on the "Where can I find drivers for my hardware?" and followed the instructions; basically you need to open the backup from the Windows Home Server using another computer, and copy of the drivers folder to a USB flash drive, and connect it to the PC you're trying to restore.

I was doubly shocked when, after following the exact steps and the boot up program scanned the USB drive, it still wouldn't list the NIC. I'm thus unable to restore the system using my Windows Home Server. How can such a core feature of the product be a complete failure? I'm pretty irritated right now with the product for failing me exactly when I needed it...any Windows Home Server experts out there care to weigh in?

UPDATE: OK, I was able to get my system restored. I went to the Intel Web site, downloaded the 32-bit drivers for the on-board network card, right-clicked to extract the EXE using WinZip to a folder, then put that whole folder on a USB flash drive. The restore wizard scanned the flash drive and was finally able to load the NIC and run the restore. Whew! The issue is that the drivers that Microsoft tells you to extract from the special folder on the backup are 64-bit if you have a 64-bit OS...and the restore process isn't compatible with 64-bit drivers, it requires 32-bit drivers. Is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? Microsoft has been championing 64-bit computer for years now, and it's rare to buy a new computer - other than a netbook - that isn't 64-bit Windows. What a colossal failure on Microsoft's part! Windows Home Server is supposed to be for regular, non-expert home users, and instead they've crippled one of the core features of the product.