By on November 16th, 2007

HP MediaSmart Manuals Online

On the HP customer care site there is now lots of technical support information for the MediaSmart Server EX470 and EX475. There are 14 FAQ’s and over 150 technical support documents. The main categories from their support site are:

  • Solve a problem
  • Setup and install
  • How to use
  • Product information
  • Manuals
  • FAQs

As you can see Manuals is in there and it takes you to a list of 4 PDF documents:

The Installation and Troubleshooting Guide is a 76 page colorful document that goes through Getting Started with your MediaSmart Server, then Using the Assistant and Installing on Additional Computers and finally there is a Troubleshooting information.

Next is the comprehensive 192 page HP Media Smart Server – User’s Guide, which goes through every detail of the HP unit

Finally there is a copy of the front and back of the Setup Poster to get you setup as easily and quickly as possible.

That’s lots of great information for HP MediaSmart users, and its applicable for us non owners too, as the information mostly applies to the Windows Home Server software in general.

EX470 Support Information

EX475 Support Information

Thanks to Daniel Wasserman for the links.

Hardware • Windows Home Server
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By on November 16th, 2007

HP MediaSmart Server in Stock and Shipping

Shopping HP

The HP MediaSmart Server’s are now in stock at hpshopping.com. HP are $10 cheaper than Amazon.com for the EX470 and the same price for the EX475, but you don’t get the $20 discount that Amazon are providing and you must pay taxes too. Still, it’s a good deal, with free standard shipping and it ships the same day and this is the only “shop” that has them in stock.

Many thanks to both Daniel Wasserman and Frederick G for the info.

Hardware • Windows Home Server
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By on November 15th, 2007

Review – Expert Guide to Windows Home Server

logo

UK Magazine PC Pro have an Expert guide to Windows Home Server on their website. The 4 page article covers the features of WHS. Read it here.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on November 15th, 2007

Diskeeper Winners Announced

dk2008-gen-flat

Well done to those of you that entered our competition to win 1 of 5 copy’s of Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer Edition, the defrag tool for WHS. We had many entries to the question:

What is the maximum supported volume size supported in Diskeeper2008 HomeServer Edition. Is it:

A) 768GB
B) Unlimited
C) 2TB

For those of you that didn’t know, the answer was B) Unlimited. I’m glad to say everyone who entered got the answer right, so the decision was based on the best phrase in 15 words or less, following on from:

I Love this MS Windows Home Server Website because…

Many good phrases were submitted, including:

  • it keeps users up-to-date like no other WHS site does.
  • it’s always first for WHS news and tells me everything I need to know!
  • of the great stories and tips I can’t find elsewhere!
  • it shows me all the cool things I can do with my new Home Server!
  • it keeps you up to date with the latest happenings in Home Server!
  • with it, I discovered and adopted WHS.

But the winning phrases came from, in no particular order:

Robert Stinnett, USA – I Love this MS Windows Home Server Website because…just like WHS storage, this site has a virtually unlimited amount of knowledge and information.

Matthew Dougan, Brighton, UK – I Love this MS Windows HomeServer Website because…it’s my one stop shop for all information and news on Microsoft’s best OS yet!

Peter Klein, Netherlands – I Love this MS Windows Home Server Website because…it saves my day, just as Home Server itself.

Josh Pearl, USA –  I Love this MS Windows Home Server website because…it has every insight possible into the world of Windows Home Server.

Roland Weigelt, Bonn, Germany – I Love this MS Windows Home Server Website because…a great product deserves a great website.

Well done to all 5 of you. Your details have been passed onto Diskeeper, who will be contacting you shortly with the download link for the full version of the software. For those of you that did not win you can get hold of a copy for only $69.95. More information on Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer Edition is available from their site.

News • Other Software • Windows Home Server
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By on November 14th, 2007

KeepVault Updated

KeepVault the online backup solution for Windows Home Server has been updated. The original version for WHS 2.10 was released on 5 November (2007). This latest update 2.12 dated 11 November (2007), incorporates the following:

  • Optimize retry attempts after network connectivity issues
  • Set file scanning thread to low priority
  • Data compression optimization
  • Fix high CPU usage on large file sets

Existing users of KeepVault can download the update from here.

More information on KeepVault is available in this post.

Backup • Windows Home Server
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By on November 14th, 2007

High-Priority Updates for WHS

Two updates are available for our server machines today:

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool – November 2007 (KB890830)
After the download, this tool runs once to check your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps to remove any infection found. If an infection is found, the tool will display a status report the next time you start your computer. A new version of the tool will be offered every month
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890830

Security Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB943460)
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS07-061.mspx

Although not specifically for WHS they are for Windows Server 2003 the underlying operating system that WHS is based on and are both High-priority updates on Windows Update for the Server machine.

If you have Windows Update turned off or you are not sure you can install the updates or check via the Console under Settings, General under Windows Update in the right panel. A restart of the server will be required afterwards.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on November 14th, 2007

Whoops – It's Silly Error Message Time

Here we have an error message during Windows Home Server installation that caused us to laugh.

Error Message    

Error Message1

Many thanks to digWin and Antonio for the pic.

News • Windows Home Server
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By on November 13th, 2007

Windows Home Server Toolkit – The User Manual

In this post we hope to give you the information you need to get the most from Microsoft’s Windows Home Server Toolkit, a tool and an add-in with many advanced features. It’s important to note that the Toolkit will not make any changes to your computer, it will point out where the problem(s) lie so you can make the necessary changes yourself. 

Firstly we need to download the latest version of the Windows Home Server Toolkit from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98872. Once downloaded , and before installing, make sure that you remove any previous versions of the toolkit, as an upgrade will not work. Run the downloaded WHSToolkit.msi on your home PC (NOT the server) to install. Once installed, the components of the Toolkit can be located in the Windows Home Server Toolkit folder in the start menu, where you will find the following:

  • Connector Troubleshooter
  • Error Reporting
  • readme.htm

Error Reporting is a command line utility which collects diagnostic logs regarding WHS, compresses them and sends them as a cab file to Microsoft for analyses. Take note of the cab file number (e.g. WER5054.tmp.cab) as it will be the only way to identify yourself as the sender of the file in case you need to contact Microsoft.

Error Reporting

These log files maybe also useful to other support professionals when they are troubleshooting issues with Windows Home Server. In this case you can stop the cab file from being sent to Microsoft by pressing N when prompted and view the generated talq.zip file yourself or send it to the person providing support for you. This file is approximately 30MB in size and is located in the following location alongside the cab file (if sent):

  • Vista: C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Temp
  • XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Temp

A good log file within this zip archive to start troubleshooting from is talq.log

Connector Troubleshooter is a program that runs on your home computer to help you troubleshoot problems with installing the Connector software. In it’s default user friendly “simple mode” it runs a series of tests to check the most common Connector Setup problems, and recommends possible solutions. It does say that it can take up to 15 minutes to complete, but in reality it only takes a minute or two.

Connector Troubleshooter

Once complete the program will close and a web page will open displaying a summery of the results. It also provides suggestions to help you successfully install and configure the Connector software.

Connector Troubleshooter Results

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
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By on November 13th, 2007

Tranquil T7-HSA Home Server Video Review

The Digital Lifestyle.com Video Show takes a look at Tranquil’s T7-HSA Home Server. The 14 minute video can be viewed from the following location.

Hardware • Windows Home Server
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By on November 13th, 2007

Remote Desktop for Mac available for WHS

I would like to bring to your attention an RDC Client for the Mac. It enables you to to remote desktop into your server from a MAC machine, and it works really well. As their blurb states:

Remote Desktop Connection Client lets you connect to a Microsoft Windows-based computer and work with programs and files on that computer from your Macintosh computer.

Download the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2.0 (Beta 2) from here.

News • Windows Home Server
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