By Philip Churchill on June 22nd, 2007
Your HELP is required for Dummies
After my earlier post on Woody Leonhard new forth coming book Windows Home Server for Dummies. Woody has been in contact asking for your help. If you have topics that you’d like to see covered in the book make sure that you post them here and I shall make sure they are forwarded to Woody. In December (2007) we should have 2 copies available to give away for the best ideas put forward. So thinking caps on and get those digits on the keyboard.
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Adding printers really needs to be documented. I thought I saw instructions on how to do it in the beta 2 documentation, and I easily added it when on that release. But I struggled to figure it all out again with RC1. After digging through the posts on Connect, I finally figured it out. This is a basic function that needs to be explained clearly.
ISP blocked sites and remote access. Clearly worded step by step instructions.
Clear understanding of shared folders and access rights for them. Cover both the default ones created during the WHS installation as well as those created by any users.
Good points.
On adding printers… the best I’ve been able to find is that you should plug the printer into the server and if it works, you were lucky. If it doesn’t work, you have to RDP and manually install the driver. Any other ideas?
ISP blocked sites… I saw that on the official forum. It’s a nasty problem. Will try to cover it.
Shared folders… I think I have that nailed, but I never did find an answer to a simple question. Perhaps you could help. Say “george” has a shared folder on the server. George doesn’t know the server’s password. How can “george” change access rights to his own shared folder?
Thanks for the input, folks….
Don’t know how to install your printer? Read the Documentation it comes with. The install will be 100% the same it would be with your computer.
Remote Desktop, I personally know how to use it, but i’m sure a lot of the “average” home users don’t. This would be pretty much required if you have a WHS without a monitor and need to do something out of the Console.
Basic instructions on how to restore a computer.
Easier to understand details on how WHS controls the drives and storage. Seems like a lot of people are worried about backing up WHS, but you do not need to if you know how WHS does Duplication.
Detailed Instructions on how to setup a Router if WHS can not configure it. Also how ports need to be enabled for each of the home computers.
Drew –
Installing a printer… I wish it were that easy! At least in RC1, many many printers have to be manually installed via RDP.
Yep, RDP is an important topic, even for “Dummies.”
Restore: got it.
Folder Duplication: offsite backup is critical if you’re worried about losing your data. I’m surprised that MS didn’t build that into WHS – but agree wholeheartedly that Folder Duplication is 10,000% better than what most people are doing now.
Routers that don’t play with UPnP successfully are the bane of my existence. I hope I can do the topic justice…
Thanks!
– Woody
Backups done over wireless network connections cannot be restored using a wireless connection. I think it’s important to let folks who -are- backing up over wireless NIC’s know that if they ever need to restore their backup, they’ll need to do so over a wired connection. Personally, I think WHS should have the smarts to pop a dlg box on the first backup (and maybe all subsequent backups, or once a week, or some other predetermined schedule) that informs the user that their backups are occuring over a wireless NIC but restores can only use wired NIC’s.
One I have seen described as a “blocking” issue is having the connector install fail. This happened to me recently as I upgraded a computer to Vista and reinstalled all the firewall client. I had forgotten about opening the required ports. Having instructions on how to do this could be a real life saver for some people.
Alex – UPnP – Gawd, what a mess, and it isn’t Microsoft’s fault. I’ll try to cover the topic thoroughly, but it’s looking mighty hairy. Shoot me mail (woody at Ask Woody dot com) if you have any suggestions for reliable resource material.
Lang – wireless restore – good point! I need to mention that right up front.
CoryB – which firewall? I haven’t looked at the problem yet, but assume that poking holes through the firewall is pretty straightforward…
Thanks, everybody!
For UPnP issues this site may be useful for you http://fp.mgillespie.plus.com/upnphelp.htm
[I know this will sound sarcastic.. but I’m completely serious]
Be sure to explain why WHS was created in the first place:
“A fall-back product after the failure of MCE… intended to cement a place for Microsoft among CE appliances that almost universally run on linux, bsd, and other embedded os’s”
Hi Gertrude,
Good point. I shall pass this on to the author Woody Leonhard.
Hey, Gertrude.
I don’t see WHS as a fall-back product at all. In fact, I think it’s a fall-forward product.
I figure WHS pays for itself with just two of its applications: very comprehensive backups; and providing a single location for me to stick all of my big hard drives. The rest is gravy.
None of the CE appliances with embedded OSs come close to WHS’s backup abilities on a Windows network. Try it. You’ll see.
I must say, I could not agree with you in 100%, but that’s just my IMHO, which indeed could be very wrong.
p.s. You have an awesome template . Where did you find it?