MS Windows Home Server

The Digital Lifestyle.Com has details of how to add your Windows Home Server shared folders to the syncing software Live Mesh.

This could to useful if your Recorded TV folders are not on the same network as you could then get them synced over the Internet with Windows Home Server.

Installing Mesh on Windows Home Server is very much like installing on a desktop system but with a couple of extra steps which are explained in this tutorial, which you can read here.

Joe DiFiglia is always looking at new and better ways to do things with his Windows Home Server and his latest venture is combing Sockso, a free open source personal music server with Home Server.

Joe’s 4 page guide will get you up and running in no time which you can read here.

The continuing series of Securing Your WHS & Network is now at part 6 with Network Security Threats.

Home Server Land has also published a list of contents to each post in the series which also includes all the up and coming parts right up to part 17, which means we still have another 11 parts to come. By bookmarking the list future parts can be accessed once and when available.

If you are going to upgrade your PC to the Release Candidate of Windows 7 then there are 2 pieces of software which can help you. Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and Windows Home Server.

If you want too know what too do with them both then Keith Elder has the details, which you can read about here.

Adrabba.net has a great tip for those of you sharing a printer which is connected to Windows Home Server to a 64bit operating system on a client machine.

Operating systems have the ability to host drivers for the printers they share so that when you connect to the printer, the driver is downloaded. Once you Remote Desktop to WHS, there is an Additional Drivers button on the Sharing tab of the printer properties:

“WHS is based on Windows Server 2003 so it doesn’t intrinsically know anything about Windows Vista or Windows 7. It does know about 64-bit Windows XP, though. By default the x64 checkbox is unchecked and the driver isn’t installed. When you check the box, you’re prompted to enter the DVD containing the driver. Unfortunately, WHS is 32-bit only so inserting the WHS DVD doesn’t help. I found a copy of Windows Server 2003 64-bit on an old MSDN DVD and used that to provide a copy of the 64-bit driver. This gives me a ‘Yes’ in the Additional Drivers dialog and now I can connect to the printer from Windows 7. When I do, Windows prompts me to elevate permissions so that the driver can be installed and all is well.”

The great add-in Advanced Admin Console (AAC) breaks when Internet Explorer 8 (ie8) is installed on Windows Home Server, and as of March 2009 ie8 is classed as a Critical Update and is automatically installed onto WHS.

So how do we correct this problem?

First of all AAC will crash when you click on an administrative item in the Advanced Admin Console, so the best way of fixing this is to not install ie8, but if it is already installed then you need to remote desktop into your Windows Home Server and from Start – Control Panel – Add or Remove Programs, scroll to the bottom and remove "Windows Internet Explorer 8".

During this process it may complain about another ie8 update which will be uninstalled during the process. Just let it continue and restart the server when prompted.

Once this procedure is complete you will need to stop Windows Update from installing it again in the future, this is accomplished by going to Start – All Programs – Windows Update. Your Home Server may want you to install an update to continue, so just let it continue.  On the right hand side click  "Custom" and let it find the ie8 update again but this time unselect the install checkbox, expand the title by clicking the “+” box and select "Don’t show this update again".

Voila – Problem solved – Windows Update will no longer find or install Internet Explorer 8.

Website "Spackle" has a tutorial on using Microsoft OneNote with Windows Home Server.

The guide explains how to setup the OneNote shared notebook enabling any notes you take in that notebook to automatically show up on all your computers using OneNote. And this is all accomplished by using OneNote’s synchronization and a common, accessible Windows Home Server share.

Read the details here.

Part 5 of Securing Your WHS & Network on website Home Server Land is now available.

This part of the security series provides an explanation of DHCP and NAT and explains how your internet connection is shared by other computers on the LAN. Configuration of the router, private network address and static IP address for Windows Home Server are also discussed.

You can read it here.

The Home Server Show website has details on how to change the photo on your Windows Home Server remote access page.

All the details are here.