MS Windows Home Server

Add-In: Drive Bender 1.1.4.0

Version 1.1.4.0 of Drive Bender has just been released to fix an issue which was introduced with 1.1.3.9.

• Bug fix: Named streams support was inadvertently enabled in the last build (feature was not ready). This could cause duplicate names to appear in the pool file system. This feature has been disabled.
• Under heavy loads, a request for a file handle could sometimes fail.

If you have version 1.1.3.9 installed then it is recommended that you update immediately.

As always this release can be downloaded from here.

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool Build 1706

Build 1706 of StableBit DrivePool is available and includes the following changes:

• Dashboard tab now has a reboot UI when the driver install requires a server reboot (after upgrade typically).
• Fixed error when adding new folder (duplicate share).
• Error report writing fixed.
• Removed locks from dashboard real-time notification management (potential runaway threads).

More details on StableBit DrivePool and the download can be found here.

Add-In: Lights-Out for WHS 2011 Version 1.5.0 Build 1545

The popular add-in Lights-Out is now available for Windows Home Server 2011.

Lights-Out is used to put a Windows Home Server 2011 into suspended mode or hibernation and resume on user defined events.

Version 1.5.0 Build 1545 of Lights-Out for Windows Home Server 2011 is the first official release for:

• Windows Home Server 2011
• Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials
• Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

Known issues:

• Resizing the Dashboard to the smallest possible window size creates a distorted Status sub-tab. Workaround: resize the Dashboard
• You can’t load a Windows Home Server v1 Lights-Out license into this version. Lights-Out for WHS 2011 requires a new license file.
• Client GUI application is not started automatically after first client push installation. Workaround: Run via Start->All Programs->Startup, Lights-Out Client or log off and log in again.
• Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials wakes up every 30 minutes by Server Infrastructure License Service (silsvc). This bug is logged in Microsoft Connect under ID 642301 and 669083. See Server Infrastructure License Service (silsvc) wakes server every 30 minutes and vote for this bug!

The download can be found here as well as a 100 page User Guide in PDF format.

Add-In: Serviio for Windows Home Server 0.5.2.0

Serviio for Windows Home Server is an add-in for v1 users which integrates the free Serviio DLNA media server into the console.

With this add-in you can stream your media files (music, video or images) to any DLNA-certified renderer device (e.g. a TV set, Bluray player, games console) on your home network.

Basic features:

• DLNA 1.5 compatible UPnP media server
• streams audio, video (SD & HD) and image files in their native format or transcoded in real-time
• automatically updates the media library when you add/update/remove a media file or a metadata file
• wide array of localized library browsing options
• supports different editable renderer profiles
• supports automatic renderer detection and per-IP profile assignment
• extracts metadata of your media files the way you want it, incl. embedded metadata tags, local metadata files, online metadata sources (in preferred language), XBMC, Swisscenter
• supports video thumbnails, CD covers, DVD posters, etc.
• supports external subtitles
• categorizes video files into movie and/or series and marks last viewed episodes of a series

Supported renderers:

• any DLNA-compliant device should work
• Samsung TVs and Bluray players (supports additional features, e.g. subtitles)
• Sony TVs and Bluray players
• Panasonic TVs
• Playstation 3
• Xbox 360
• LG TVs and Bluray players (supports subtitles)
• Toshiba TVs
• WDTV Live
• Oppo BDP-83
• MusicPal
• DirecTV DVR
• … and many more

Supported media files:

• Audio: MP3( .mp3), Windows Media Audio (.wma), AAC (.m4a), OGG (.ogg, .oga), FLAC (.flac)
• Video: MPEG-1 (.mpg, .mpeg), MPEG-2 PS (.mpg, .mpeg, vob, mod), MPEG-2 TS (.ts, .m2ts), MPEG-4 (.mp4, m4v, mov), AVI (.avi, .divx), Windows Media Video (.wmv, .asf), Matroska (.mkv), Flash (.flv, .f4v), DVR-MS (.dvr, .dvr-ms), WTV (.wtv)
• Image: JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg), GIF (.gif), PNG (.png)

You still have to install Serviio, but this add-in enables you to configure Serviio from inside your WHS console.

Currently in beta release, version  0.5.2.0 is available to download from here.