MS Windows Home Server

By Philip Churchill on February 22nd, 2013

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 214

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Its time for another episode of "The Home Server Show" podcast and this week its "When a NAS fits better than a server":

When is it better to use a NAS rather than a server in a small business? Some will say never and I’m sure there are dozens of different answers but I have a scenario where it made sense. We will talk about that, ioSafe’s N2, and give you a Symform update. I was also stumped by a chat room question regarding a Synology box!

You can find episode 214 here.

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By Philip Churchill on February 21st, 2013

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool v1.3.0.7415 BETA

The beta build of StableBit DrivePool for WHS2011, SBS 2011 Essentials and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials has had an update.

Version 1.3.0.7415 BETA has miscellaneous fixes and is probably the last beta before the final release:

Fixed extra metadata generation by disk identification (port from 2.0).
[D] Driver prohibition (port from 2.0).
The size of Client Computer Backups may not have been reported on the DrivePool tab.
Added a new setting called RunningFile_FileName. When set, DrivePool will create a file at this path whenever running background tasks.

[D] = Driver was modified (reboot required after update)

You can download this release from here.

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By Philip Churchill on February 20th, 2013

Add-In: My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution v2.13 Build 2

My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution for WHS 2011 and Windows Server 2012 Essentials has had an update.

Version 2.13 Build 2 has the following changes:

Fix: AnyDVD registration was broken.
Fix: Changes to the backup method, to hopefully resolve out of memory errors for some users.

This release can be downloaded from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server

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By Philip Churchill on February 19th, 2013

Add-In: Drive Bender RC1 v1.4.7.8 Beta

Version 1.4.7.8 (RC1) of Drive Bender is available with SMART updates and performance improvements.

Here’s the beta change log:

Update: Improved the file deleting speed for folders will a large number of files.
Update: The file handling performance has been dramatically improved.
Bug fix: Manually activation can fail with an error.
Update: S.M.A.R.T. drive detection has been improved.
Update: S.M.A.R.T. monitoring ignores drives that are in a powered down mode.
Update: Email notifications are now limited in the number that can be sent is a given period.

This beta release can be downloaded from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server

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By Philip Churchill on February 18th, 2013

The BYOB Podcast Episode 112

Episode 112 of the BYOB podcast is up:

“Light show this week, VUDU, UltraViolet, TMT 5, Insteon, Livescribe Sky Wifi Pen on this weeks BYOB Podcast.”

You can find all 39 minutes of this weeks episode from here.

News • Windows Home Server

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By Philip Churchill on February 17th, 2013

Stop DNS Requests Routing Through WS2012e

You may be aware that there is a registry hack to stop WS2012e setting up its own Active Directory domain which stops client computers from automatically being added to that domain, but performing the hack can lead to the WSE Connector software altering the network settings on the client computer routeing all DNS requests through the WSE server. Manually changing the DNS settings back to their defaults works for a while, but would reset the DNS setting back to the WSE machine a short time later.

This is caused by the Windows Server LAN Configuration service on the client computer. Disabling this service prevents the DNS settings from being altered to point to the WSE server and luckily for us, there is a fix for this too.

More information on the problem and the fix are available from here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server

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By Philip Churchill on February 16th, 2013

How to to Configure WS2012e

A series of articles from the Petri IT Knowledgebase on WS2012 Essentials.

Their first article explains how to to configure WS2012e. Additional articles will explain how to use the Office365 Configuration Wizard and how to run through the WS2012 Essentials backup and Anywhere Access configuration and user management.

You can read part one here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server

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By Philip Churchill on February 14th, 2013

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 213B

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A short 42 minute episode of The Home Server Show this week on cloud storage and Symform:

Jim and I take just a little of your time to discuss cloud storage in general and the space that we use and things we need to try in order to reduce our storage. Jim is also trying out Symform and does his first report in what will be a lengthy review of the service to come.

Episode 213B of "The Home Server Show" podcast can be found here.

News • Windows Home Server

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By Philip Churchill on February 14th, 2013

Add-In: My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution v2.13

Another update for My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution for users of WHS 2011 and WS2012 Essentials.

Version 2.13 has the following changes:

Added: Option to use external storage devices instead of only internal storage.
Update: Product package renamed to My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution to cover that the package is now common for Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Server 2012 Essentials.
Change: Windows Media Encoder is no longer installed by default, but only installed when selecting to convert to Windows Media format.
Fix: ReFS file system drives is now supported for disc copying.
Fix: In some situations a file could corrupt, and the dashboard icon disappear.
Fix: The application prompted to register AnyDVD when updating, even if already installed.
Fix: MusicBrainz was disabled was a meta-data provider during Pre Release testing, and is now enabled again.
Fix: Music covers was not backed up.

You can download this release from here.

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By Philip Churchill on February 11th, 2013