Anyone else get an invite to beta test this product? After reading about it in Max PC and applying online to beta test Im now able to download it and will prolly install on my server this weekend or following weekend. Just from the short articles and such Ive read it sounds like it will have alot of features that will be useful.
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Windows Home Server
- Thread starter hity645
- Start date
I just got my invitation and am downloading the package now. I'll probably mess with it this weekend. I've got a spare box lying around. It has on-board Gigabit, and a 10/100 PCI card. I may spring for a gigabit PCI card as well. I've got my main rig and an Apple Powerbook in the house, and am using a D-Link DGL-4300 gigabit wireless router. I'll need to figure out the optimal hook-up for the server. Maybe router > server > PC, and leave the Powerbook wireless.
I'm also contemplating sticking my PVR card in there and loading some PVR software and make this thing an HTPC/media server. Don't know yet.... It'll be cool to try this thing though.
I'm also contemplating sticking my PVR card in there and loading some PVR software and make this thing an HTPC/media server. Don't know yet.... It'll be cool to try this thing though.
FromTheLou
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2006
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- 1,118
I'm about 60% done downloading, and I plan on replacing my DC here at home with this.
From what I've read at least in this beta 2, you can still dcpromo the beta 2 and have it work.
I'll report back in the morning.
From what I've read at least in this beta 2, you can still dcpromo the beta 2 and have it work.
I'll report back in the morning.
Nice to see some of you guys are in on the beta. I got 4 PCs and 1 laptop on my network going through a netgear router. 3 of the pcs and the laptop have XP Pro, one of the PCs is acting as my file server. and the last PC has home. I got 3 drives in my file server an 80GB, 250GB and 400GB. 80GB will be the system drive. The 250GB has a complete backup of My Documents folder which I Sync using SyncToy and it also carries some private files in a different folder. The backup and private folder are only accessible by me. The 400GB drive has movies on it. Once I get my tax returns Ill ad another 400-500GB drive and throw a folder on there for storing pictures and stuff so that everyone on the network can view it. What I want to know is how WHS will act with my other 2 drives after its installed. I don't want it to demand I format or show that the drives have nothing on them.
Im really excited about the File Sharing aspect of this, having private folders and public folders and the PC backup sounds like a nice feature.
Im really excited about the File Sharing aspect of this, having private folders and public folders and the PC backup sounds like a nice feature.
Google windows home server and there should be a link to the beta registration page. They require you have broadband and a couple pcs + one to dedicate for use to the beta.
Specs of your server?
http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer
Looks like it would make home-file-servers a lot easier to manage. Though, is this a whole new OS, or just an add-on for NT? (and by add on, I mean is it basically stripped down XP/Vista)...
daytripper67mi
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2004
- Messages
- 364
just got my invite ...going to download now
saintrobyn
Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2001
- Messages
- 928
I have been playing with it for about three days now and I am really digging it. There are some performance issues like it is a little slow copying large amounts of files over my all gigabit network but what can I complain about, it is beta and these types of things are why I was invited to test it in the first place.
One thing that I cannot stress enough to everyone that is in the beta and reading this post is that you need to set your biggest drive as the primary. The reason is that it calculates your free space using that drive. If you use an 80GB drive as your primary and a 500GB as a data drive WHS will take 10GB of the 80GB for the OS and leave you with 70GB remaining. This being the case you will only be able to copy 70GB of data to the server at any given time and it will probably go down as the OS places tombstones on the primary drive in order to keep track of where the data is going. This is a known bug and they are working on fixing it.
My specs for my WHS box are:
2.56GHz P4
Intel D845PEBT2
512MB PC2100 DDR
2x 160GB Maxtor drives
1X 40GB Maxtor Drive
One thing that I cannot stress enough to everyone that is in the beta and reading this post is that you need to set your biggest drive as the primary. The reason is that it calculates your free space using that drive. If you use an 80GB drive as your primary and a 500GB as a data drive WHS will take 10GB of the 80GB for the OS and leave you with 70GB remaining. This being the case you will only be able to copy 70GB of data to the server at any given time and it will probably go down as the OS places tombstones on the primary drive in order to keep track of where the data is going. This is a known bug and they are working on fixing it.
My specs for my WHS box are:
2.56GHz P4
Intel D845PEBT2
512MB PC2100 DDR
2x 160GB Maxtor drives
1X 40GB Maxtor Drive
This software could, for once, be non-feature bloated and actually work as advertisedFrom what I understand, Windows Home Server is based off Windows Server 2003 code.
yeah, it's based off of Windows Server 2003...
The core OS is Windows 2003 server with SP2. I've had mine running for a week now.
Sempron 1800+, 768 MB RAM, 2x300GB HDs, 100 Mb/s NIC. The web based remote interface is nice, but you have to have port 4125 access from the machine you are using, it can't pump everything for the remote sessions over SSL on port 443 only.
No major issues, but I opened one new bug, and confirmed several others.
Sempron 1800+, 768 MB RAM, 2x300GB HDs, 100 Mb/s NIC. The web based remote interface is nice, but you have to have port 4125 access from the machine you are using, it can't pump everything for the remote sessions over SSL on port 443 only.
No major issues, but I opened one new bug, and confirmed several others.
i'm waiting for a response to download the beta software. I will be installing it on my file server
Specs:
AMD Opteron 144
ASUS A8V-VM
Corsair XMS 512MB DDR 400 Ram
Seagate 120GB HDD
Aspire 450w psu
Coolermaster Centurion 5
Windows Home Server Beta 2
I know 120gb is low space, but i don't really need the space for large movies. All i put on my file sharing is music, photos, and docs. I'll probably add a 500gb hdd for movies later on.
Specs:
AMD Opteron 144
ASUS A8V-VM
Corsair XMS 512MB DDR 400 Ram
Seagate 120GB HDD
Aspire 450w psu
Coolermaster Centurion 5
Windows Home Server Beta 2
I know 120gb is low space, but i don't really need the space for large movies. All i put on my file sharing is music, photos, and docs. I'll probably add a 500gb hdd for movies later on.
Billiam411
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2005
- Messages
- 197
i got the invite a few days ago, but sadly my POS old dell server that i used for apache/mysql doesnt have the 512mb ram minimum (and it uses rdram so buying more is out of the question $$) i'm trying it on my gaming rig using virtual pc 2007 (i tried it on vmware but i kept getting an error "could not initialize the UI subsystem" but it works fine on vpc, hm.. lol) still installing right now, ill give further feedback once avaiable
$) i'm trying it on my gaming rig using virtual pc 2007 (i tried it on vmware but i kept getting an error "could not initialize the UI subsystem" but it works fine on vpc, hm.. lol) still installing right now, ill give further feedback once avaiableI am very intrested in your experiences with this. I don't have a 2nd PC at the moment to test it out with but i'd very much like to use this home server one day. What makes in unique?
I have 1x150gb raptor
1x74gb raptor
2x160gb seagate RAID 0
2x250gb seagate RAID 0
2x500gb seagate
Belkin RAID controller card
Highpoint RAID controller card
Will it work if you access windows home server from a mac?
I have 1x150gb raptor
1x74gb raptor
2x160gb seagate RAID 0
2x250gb seagate RAID 0
2x500gb seagate
Belkin RAID controller card
Highpoint RAID controller card
Will it work if you access windows home server from a mac?
Billiam411
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2005
- Messages
- 197
i installed it in virtual pc 2007 (took a while though lol) and it looks just like server 2003, except it is stripped of the more advanced features, and is more geared towards home users (visual step by step process for configuring user permission, folder shares, etc)
it does what its supposed to, so i cant complain about it.
once setup up it showed up on my other computers' upnp list in my network places
the 'windows home server console' is where everything is at, setting up the remote access, with computers and backup, user accounts, shared folders, and server storage tabs, letting you set them up appropriately
unfortionately i am getting an 'access denied' error when attempting to connect to it (internalipaddress:2869/upnphost/) i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong, it could just be that i'm on a virtual pc, it could be that maybe i have to add in my credentials into the url? who knows. ill shed some light on this when i have more time to explore around a bit
edit:
haha... silly me, you have to run the connector cd on the clients prior to accessing the console. duh. maybe i should read the instructions
it does what its supposed to, so i cant complain about it.
once setup up it showed up on my other computers' upnp list in my network places
the 'windows home server console' is where everything is at, setting up the remote access, with computers and backup, user accounts, shared folders, and server storage tabs, letting you set them up appropriately
unfortionately i am getting an 'access denied' error when attempting to connect to it (internalipaddress:2869/upnphost/) i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong, it could just be that i'm on a virtual pc, it could be that maybe i have to add in my credentials into the url? who knows. ill shed some light on this when i have more time to explore around a bit
edit:
haha... silly me, you have to run the connector cd on the clients prior to accessing the console. duh. maybe i should read the instructions
It does not do AD integration by default, but the option to do so does exist in the interface. I'm not planning to try it as that isn't how it is designed to be used.
It adds any new drives as a spanned volume added to the existing data drive. It uses shadow volume copies and some other techniques to add data storage robustness.
The really nice part is the automated block level file and single instance file backups it does of the other client computers. Just install the client software, and it handles the backups automatically. The client notifier also lets you know if ANY of your client machines don't have their firewall/AV/current patches in good shape.
It can do a bare metal restore from the backups on supported hardware by booting from CD. When viewing the backups from another client machine, it mounts the backup session as a drive, and you can just drag and drop files to another machine from a different client's backup.
Mine has been sucking away my free time as I play with all of its features.
All your files on the server are available through the web, over a SSL web page. When you download them, it takes all the files you have selected, zips them, then sends it as a single zip file.
There are plenty of other toys as well.
It adds any new drives as a spanned volume added to the existing data drive. It uses shadow volume copies and some other techniques to add data storage robustness.
The really nice part is the automated block level file and single instance file backups it does of the other client computers. Just install the client software, and it handles the backups automatically. The client notifier also lets you know if ANY of your client machines don't have their firewall/AV/current patches in good shape.
It can do a bare metal restore from the backups on supported hardware by booting from CD. When viewing the backups from another client machine, it mounts the backup session as a drive, and you can just drag and drop files to another machine from a different client's backup.
Mine has been sucking away my free time as I play with all of its features.
All your files on the server are available through the web, over a SSL web page. When you download them, it takes all the files you have selected, zips them, then sends it as a single zip file.
There are plenty of other toys as well.
I'm one of the folks the final of WHS is really aimed at...we have 4 systems running and want to get a server running. but I've never set one up.
I have the WHS beta loaded on a spare sys with a 1.6 Ghz P4/512MB ram/DVD drive and 120 GB hdd...it's hardwired into a router with 2 of our four systems.
When I attempt to connect to the WHS box after loading the WHS Connector software on another sys, I get a notice that the server is not connected...I know the onboard LAN chip is functional because it dl'ed the updates for WHS.
Tried all kinds of troubleshooting stuff but no luck yet.
Any ideas...I'm certain it's something basic.
TIA!
***Well I got into the WHS console after installing the connector sw on a different sys. I'm suspecting that I've got this sys locked down tight, specifically the port WHS uses. I'll rummage around some more. My suspicion is it's the nvidia firewall that's got it locked down.
I have the WHS beta loaded on a spare sys with a 1.6 Ghz P4/512MB ram/DVD drive and 120 GB hdd...it's hardwired into a router with 2 of our four systems.
When I attempt to connect to the WHS box after loading the WHS Connector software on another sys, I get a notice that the server is not connected...I know the onboard LAN chip is functional because it dl'ed the updates for WHS.
Tried all kinds of troubleshooting stuff but no luck yet.
Any ideas...I'm certain it's something basic.
TIA!
***Well I got into the WHS console after installing the connector sw on a different sys. I'm suspecting that I've got this sys locked down tight, specifically the port WHS uses. I'll rummage around some more. My suspicion is it's the nvidia firewall that's got it locked down.
Aw poop. I was seriously curious. If it worked well, I'd consider getting myself a copy. I guess I gotta beg MS for a beta invite?
Dangman
Ninja Editor SuperMod
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2005
- Messages
- 46,056
I've had the invite for a while now but one of the PC's I was planning to use as the server died due to a five year old and his chocolate ice cream cone. Ahh well. I think I should have another PC avaliable in the next few days for use as a server. I'll post more then.
TechLarry
RIP [H] Brother - June 1, 2022
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- Aug 9, 2005
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- 30,481
Anyone know how to get VirtualPC 2007 to run as a service?
hyt3k9
2[H]4U
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- Aug 26, 2006
- Messages
- 2,240
I assume this isn't protected under an NDA, so where the hell are the pics?? Post up and show off this interface please!!!!!
saintrobyn
Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2001
- Messages
- 928
Here are some pics from the Windows Home Server Console that you install on your machine to control the server. For those that are curious about the computer names, my father and I use to run a BBS back in the day called "The Strange Quark". I was a SYSOP at age 10. In memory to my father who passed away in 1997 I began naming my computer Strange Quark and all the other computers in my house a derivative of the Quark name.
Login
Computers & Backup
Computers & Backup Options
User Accounts
User Accounts Options 1
User Accounts Options 2
Shared Folders
Shared Folders Options 1
Shared Folders Options 2
Server Storage
Network Health
Server Settings 1
Server Settings 2
Server Settings 3
Server Settings 4
Server Settings 5
In memory to my father who passed away in 1997 I began naming my computer Strange Quark and all the other computers in my house a derivative of the Quark name.Login
Computers & Backup
Computers & Backup Options
User Accounts
User Accounts Options 1
User Accounts Options 2
Shared Folders
Shared Folders Options 1
Shared Folders Options 2
Server Storage
Network Health
Server Settings 1
Server Settings 2
Server Settings 3
Server Settings 4
Server Settings 5
swatbat
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2001
- Messages
- 13,052
My notebook has a legit copy of enterprise on it(first one not r2).
Home server is running 2k3 std right now. Would try home server but really don't feel like downgrading.
Still I see this as a real nice setup for homes with multiple machines. I'm sure I'll end up having to learn it at somepoint.