By on February 21st, 2010

Add-In: Disk Management for Windows Home Server 1.1.2.1997

The Disk Management add-in from fellow MVP Sam Wood is designed for users who need more detail about their server’s storage status than what the standard Server Storage interface provides. It’s also the 1st add-in I install on a Windows Home Server box and the good news is that a new version is finally available with lots of new features.

The add-in has been entirely re-architected to use a Windows Service to do all the back-end heavy lifting, with no more pop-up windows to see detailed information about your disks, it’s all there in one display.

DiskManagement-MainTab

New Features in Version 1.1:

  • Significantly improved user interface (including a collapsible pane for the wireframe if you don’t use it)
  • Significantly improved performance, especially on multi-core CPUs
  • Charts for disk space statistics
  • Charts for disk space utilization over time
  • Disk statistics logging to a file
  • More disk details, including the NTFS mount point for each disk
  • Real counting of the actual backup database size (for all you crazy kids with backup duplication enabled)
  • A detailed help file

Changes to version 1.1.2.1997:

  • Fixed help link in Settings
  • Added pre-install check to make sure previous versions have been uninstalled

As well as these new features Sam Wood’s company website, “Tentacle Software” has also had a major facelift. With a new style, and a new store.

The other major change is that Disk Management will no longer be free, but instead  moving to a paid model, which will help ensure that Disk Management is supported and maintained in the future. A free 30-day trial, with no feature or functionality limitations is available, to help you decide if the new improved add-in is for you.  If so, then a license for v1.x will cost you just US$10 per home server, which is not too bad at all.

DiskManagement-MainTab-StorageDetails

Tentacle Software stated that Disk Management 1.1 is the start of something special, and that they have got plans for all sorts of goodies for Windows Home Server users which they are sure that you will love.

You can download version 1.1.2.1997 from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on February 20th, 2010

Acer Aspire Revo R3610 review

Acer Revo R3610Today we have a bit of a departure over previous hardware reviews, as the Acer Revo R3610 isn’t specifically designed or sold as a Windows Home Server. We thought that as it was such a neat and compact box, with good spec hardware it might make a handy and capable little server.

The Acer Revo R3610’s day job when it isn’t moonlighting as a Windows Home Server is what I can only describe as a netbook without a screen; not the fastest PC you can buy, but small and capable of allowing its users to surf the Internet and know that it will run most of the things they will want.

It is designed to either sit on top of a desk, or by using the supplied VESA mount, hide itself around the back of your LCD TV, giving your TV the power of the Internet. This internet enabling of an existing TV is made even easier with the supplied wireless keyboard and mouse.

Hardware

At its heart, the R3610 has an Intel Atom N330 running at 1.6Ghz and an NVIDIA ION chipset providing the graphics. Storage options vary depending on model, but RAM at 2Gb or 4GB and hard disk at 250gb or 500gb seems to be the order of business if you look around online stores for one. Finally we also have built in wireless networking.

Acer Revo R3610 top

Hardware • Windows Home Server
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By on February 20th, 2010

Add-In: Umbrella CTP1

The CodePlex open source community is hosting "Umbrella", the codename for an installation package which installs SharePoint Services 3.0 onto Windows Home Server.

Umbrella CTP1

Features:

  • SharePoint single server installation
  • Support for language packs

Planned Features

  • "Synchronize" SharePoint users
  • Automatic Backup
  • Reference files on WHS in SharePoint lists
  • Full integration into the Home Server Website (including remote access)
  • Installation tool for STP and WSP files (including language conversion)
  • Special templates for SharePoint

Available as a technical preview (CTP1) it is currently aimed at experienced users only.

More details are available from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on February 19th, 2010

Free Cloud Backup for Comcast Customers

If you are a Comcast customer then you are now entitled to 2GB of cloud storage for FREE. This is their standard storage plan but for just $4.99 per month you can get 50GB or 200GB for just $9.99.

This is great pricing, now all we need is some Comcast subscribers to sign up for free and test if the installer works on Windows Home Server. The minimum system requirements are Windows 2000 and as WHS is based on Windows 2003 we should be good to go.

All you need for sign up is your Comcast.net email address and password and being that the storage space is provided by Mozy the quality should be excellent.

More details and signup are available from here.

Please Note: This offer is available to residential accounts only (non-commercial accounts).

Thanks to Bob Crook for the details.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on February 19th, 2010

Asus TS Mini Reviewed

bit-tech.net has a 4 page review on the Asus TS Mini Windows Home Server.

The review looks inside the unit and test its performance by doing file transfer tests.

Asus TS Mini Inside bit-tech.net

You can find their review here.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on February 19th, 2010

Backup WHS Shared Folders Using Robocopy

If you want be backup your Windows Home Server shared folders to an external NAS drive, you would have noticed that its a manual process and no scheduler is included, but bobbo33 from the Productive Geek forums has come up with a solution.

By using Robocopy and creating a WHS User named "Backup", bobbo33 explains the procedure to get it working, which you can find here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
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By on February 19th, 2010

Add-In: DA Document Manager 2010 3.1.100

There is an update to you DA Document Manager 2010 add-in.

DA Document Manager WHS Console

Version 3.1.100 includes the following changes:

Client Connector

  • Fixed, Subcategories in the Workspace Form are still shown for all Categories when they are assigned to only one Category
  • Fixed, Archive Recovery fails if the archive title contains an illegal character (Tilde ~, Open Quote `, Plus +, Bar |, Ampersand &, Single Quote ‘)
  • Fixed, Under Search Documents; Advanced Options Group expansion setting is not remembered when the application is restarted
  • Fixed, Under Search Documents; Date Created does not display when clicking on Search Results in the Auto Fill Form box

WHS Add-in

  • Fixed, Add-in will display a popup error messages when trying to connect to the DA WebService if a user manually overrides the Default Website port
  • Fixed, Add-in does not allow the database web service connection port to be changed

The download is located here as well as a PDF User’s Guide.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on February 19th, 2010

Add-In: Redec Syslog 0.2

Beta 2 of the add-in Redec Syslog is now available and includes the following changes:

  • Added additional filtering and grouping
  • Fixed a couple of stability issues
  • More robust error handling
  • Resolved a few LinkSYS compatibility issues

The add-in is a simple syslog server add-in which enables Windows Home Server to become a syslog server for your network devices and receivers.

Redec Syslog 0.2

You can download beta directly from here (msi file).

Thanks to HomeServerLand for the update.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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By on February 19th, 2010

WHS for SOHO Users

The Windows Home Server sub site at Microsoft.com has a new page especially for SOHO users.

From here you can learn more about how Windows Home Server will help make your business more efficient and effective.

Microsoft WHS SOHO Page

Available are case study videos where you can see first-hand how Home Server has been positively affecting small businesses.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on February 19th, 2010

Add-In: WHS Quickbooks and Quicken

The Office Maven (Mike Craven) who makes WHS Outlook has a couple of new add-ins in the works: WHS QuickBooks and WHS Quicken.

Both need the appropriate application installed directly onto WHS, either QuickBooks or Quicken and WHS Quicken provides web access to Quicken from anywhere in the world using just your Internet Explorer web browser (or using the Firefox web browser with the IE Tab add-on).

Mike plans to have both add-ins available very shortly.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
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