Add-In: Advanced Admin Console 2011 v1.5.1

The add-in Advanced Admin Console 2011 has had an update after some users experienced Dashboard crashes on Windows Server 2012 Essentials with the Advanced Admin Console 2011 AddIn installed.

Advanced Admin Console Box Shot

Here is the change log for version 1.5.1:

  • FIXED: The Dashboard could not be launched successfully on some systems when AAC 2011 was installed.
  • FIXED: Clicking on “Quick Status” on the Home tab of the Dashboard caused the Dashboard to crash when AAC 2011 was installed.

You can download this latest release from here.

Video: Setup Direct Access on WS2012e for Windows 8 Clients

There’s a great video on YouTube entitled "How to Enable and Configure Direct Access on Windows Server 2012 Essentials for Windows 8 Clients."

How to Enable and Configure Direct Access on WS2012e for Windows 8 Clients Video

The 42 minute video is based on Microsoft’s TechNet article "Configure DirectAccess in Windows Server 2012 Essentials", and includes XCOPY commands and additional information which can be found here.

My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution v2.13 PR3

My Movies for WHS Monitor

The My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 product have been renamed to My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution, as it now supports both Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Server 2012 Essentials as part of the same package and new is version 2.13 PR3.

My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution 2.13 PR3 has the following change log:

  • Change: Windows Media Encoder is no longer installed by default, but only installed when selecting to convert to Windows Media format.
  • Fix: NAS storage was disabled by mistake.
  • Fix: Music covers was not backed up.
  • Fix: Company share was not detected correct on non-English versions of Essentials 2012

Version 2.13 PR3 of My Movies Home and Essentials Server Solution  can be downloaded from here.

A Quick Overview of Server 2012 Essentials

The Beagle built a 2012 Essentials lab machine on his HyperV host at home and gives us a tour (with commentary).

WS2012e Dashboard  for server management  and Launchpad for local user

A nice preview for those of you who have not tried WS2012e yet.

You can find the Beagle’s post here.

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 209

home_server_show_small

Its time for another episode of "The Home Server Show" podcast:

It’s the Home Server Show post Christmas show and we are sharing the airwaves with Surface Geeks.  I don’t think you will even notice a difference actually!  The Surface Geek listeners will hear some differences because we are going to talk about a monster of a Lenovo server.  We have a first time builder in the forums and we discuss his build…

You can find the audio for this episode here.

CloudBerry Backup for WHS v3.2

CloudBerry Backup for WHS version 3.2 has been released.

The new release comes with the following features.

  • Amazon Glacier Smart Restore. Amazon Glacier data restore is charged based on the peak usage during the given month. In other words if you have to restore 100GB and you restore them in 1 hours you will pay one amount. But if you restore 1GB for the next 100 hours you will pay 100 times less.
  • This latest release of CloudBerry Backup v 3.2 also has the Smart Restore functionality, that allows you to manage data restore budget in an intelligent way.

CloudBerry Backup Glacier Smart Restore

CloudBerry Lab is offering 40% discount for CloudBerry Backup for WHS 2011 if you purchase till 1/1/2013 . you can buy it for just $17,99 (full price is $29,99)

https://sites.fastspring.com/cloudberrylab/instant/whs2011?coupon=WHS122012

and for SBS 2011 Essentials (Windows Server 2012 Essentials). you can purchase it at just $41,99 (full price is $69,99)

https://sites.fastspring.com/cloudberrylab/instant/sbs2011?coupon=SBS122012

Experiences Using Windows Server Essentials 2012

Back in early December Microsoft forum user Kevin Purcell posted his experiences of using Windows Server Essentials 2012.

Kevin lists 13 experiences he had with Microsoft’s latest small server offering which detail Storage Spaces, media issues amongst others which may be of interest to you if you are a new user of WS2012 Essentials.

You can find Kevin’s post here.

The BYOB Podcast Episode 106

BYOB Logo

Episode 106 of the BYOB podcast is available:

Happy Holidays! 2012 in review, SkyDrive Sync, Crucial RMA, CrashPlan, Super Router, Type Cover, Surface RT, Windows 8 Apps on the BYOB Podcast.

And you can find it here.

Twas the Night before Christmas

From all of us here at MSWHS.com we wish all our readers, advertisers, supporters and contributors a very merry Christmas/happy holidays (depending on your faith) and wish you a wonderful time with family, friends and your Servers!

christmas_sleigh_ride_snow_santa_moon

Santa is preparing on this Christmas Eve
To deliver presents, which I am waiting to receive

In his sack a Server, a surprise for some one old or new
It may not have Windows Home Server but Essentials 2012 will have to do
To Backup PCs and a Mac machine too.
But that’s not all a Server can do

Sharing and storage to name a few
Not forgetting add-ins which can extend it anew
I love my Essentials Server, oh that is so true
I’m awaiting a new one from Santa – Are you?

Merry Christmas everyone.

Thin Provisioning in Storage Spaces

The IT Pro Connection blog on TechNet has an interesting article on thin provisioning in Storage Spaces.

The article explains what thin provisioning is and how to configure it in Storage Spaces.

Thinprovisioning

A nice read which also includes a 13 minute video which you can find here.