Doug Knox on Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server

Caveat emptor or "Let the buyer beware"

2008-10-05T14:48:03Z

Ok, this is a new one for me. I love to give good reviews of products and services, and generally hate to give bad ones. For years, one of my favorite places to go for things electronic was CompUSA. I could usually find what I wanted at a decent price, get it quickly and had no problems with customer service. Ok, sure, there were times that a competing big-box store had a better price, or an online retailer had a fantastic price that made it worth the 3-day shipping wait........... However, by and...(read more)

RadioTime for Windows Media Center

2008-03-21T23:03:00Z

I found a new (to me anyway) service today, thanks to an insert in the box my Linksys DMA2200 came in. Its called RadioTime, and its free. Its a Media Center plugin that allows you to stream Internet radio stations from all over the world. And it can present you with a list of local radio stations, based on your ZIP code, that are available for streaming. You can add your favorite stations to a Favorites list (who knew there was a country radio station in Prague?). This feature requires a free subcription...(read more)

Linksys DMA2200 Media Center Extender for Windows Vista

2008-03-21T22:53:00Z

My Linksys DMA2200 arrived today, thanks to the Media Center team at Microsoft (Thanks, folks!). I was fortunate enough to get to test a competing product, the D-Link DSM-750 , prior to this. PRO: The single biggest advantage of the DMA2200 over the DSM-750 is a built-in DVD player. This is a 1080p upscaling DVD player. Sadly, you have to exit the Media Center Extender UI to get to the DVD player, but........ Its an inconvenience, not a show-stopper. PRO: The UI in the DMA2200 seems to be a bit snappier...(read more)

MagicDisc - Another Nice Freeware Program

2007-12-23T13:54:42Z

MagicDisc is freeware. It is very helpful utility designed for creating and managing virtual CD drives and CD/DVD discs. For anyone who deals with CD-based programs – it is a MUST. MagicDisc allows you to use almost all CD/DVD image without burning them onto CD or DVD in order to easily access your favorite games, music, or software programs ---- It works like a real CD/DVD-ROM: You can run programs, play games, or listen to music from your virtual CD-ROM. Allowing you to run your game images...(read more)

Twenty (20) KB Articles Related to Windows Home Server

2007-12-23T13:47:45Z

To date, there have been twenty (20) KB articles published, related to Windows Home Server. http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?query=Windows%20Home%20Server&catalog=LCID%3d1033&mode=r&lsc=0&spid=12624&range=...(read more)

Possible Data Corruption With Windows Home Server

2007-12-23T13:38:05Z

A Microsoft KB article was released on 12/20/2007 which describes reported situations where data corruption may occur when you use certain programs to edit files stored in a Windows Home Server's "Shared Folders". http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/946676 When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server...(read more)

New Media Center Update for Windows Vista

2007-11-12T23:45:44Z

A new update for Media Center in Windows Vista will be released through Windows Update this week. Among the fixes listed are: • Several issues that are related to the Media Center Extensibility Platform • An issue that affects digital cable card components when you use Scientific Atlanta cable cards • Interaction issues that occur between Media Center PC and Microsoft Xbox 360 when Xbox 360 is used as a Media Center Extender. • Autolaunch issues that occur...(read more)

Technical Brief for Windows Home Server Drive Extender

2007-10-30T23:58:28Z

For those interested in the workings of Windows Home Server, behind the scenes, here's a great technical brief that describes the Windows Home Server Drive Extender technology and how it helps ensure that you can always add adequate storage space quickly and easily. http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/F/C/2FC09C20-587F-4F16-AA33-C6C4C75FB3DD/Windows_Home_Server_Drive_Extender.pdf...(read more)

Microsoft-Home-Server-House

2007-10-28T18:41:17Z

Microsoft has posted an interactive video demonstration of Windows Home Server and what you can do with it. Microsoft-Home-Server-House...(read more)

CD/DVD/ISO Creation Alternative

2007-10-25T05:32:11Z

Ok, I've tried Nero and other utilities for burning CD/DVD media from ISO files, as well as creating ISO files. While Nero works fine, 99.9% of the time (others less so), I've been using a free CD/DVD burning tool called ImgBurn. It can be downloaded from http://www.imgburn.com . There's a full write up on the web site about what you can do with it. All I can say is, "It hasn't made a single coaster yet!!" And that's good enough for me. From the author's web...(read more)

Windows Home Server - My RTM Experience

2007-10-25T04:52:00Z

Ok, Windows Home Server has been RTM'd for over 90 days now, and many folks are getting their copies from various online retailers. I won't go into who's been bad and good in that department for this post, but lets say some vendors have been worse than others. We're also seeing a wide variety of pricing for the same disc set from vendor to vendor. If you care to post a comment about the retailer your dealing with, please keep it neat, clean and family friendly (if you don't, I'll delete your comment...(read more)

Vista Media Center with Four Digital Cable Tuners

2007-10-15T22:23:00Z

(or How Much TV Can You NOT Watch in a Week?) This is so very, very cool! For those of you who are considering buying a new Windows Vista PC with one or more Digital Cable Tuners (DCT), there is hope for some rockin' systems. We've seen various announcements that Niveus will be shipping a Vista Media Center PC with support for four (4) Digital Cable Tuners and I'm sure other vendors will follow. I really, really wanted to see this in action, so I asked the Media Center beta team...(read more)

Windows Home Server SDK now available

2007-10-14T22:06:45Z

For those who have been waiting for the necessary information to write Add-ins for Windows Home Server, the online documentation for the Windows Home Server SDK (Software Development Kit) is now available online. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa496121.aspx...(read more)

Windows Home Server Toolkit v1 - The Nuts and Bolts

2007-10-14T19:32:00Z

As you've probably seen from Robert McLaws' blog post, there's a new Toolkit for Windows Home Server. There are several components to this. Some run in the WHS Console as an Add-in, and others can be run locally on the client, or the server.

The Console Add-in gives you a new item under Settings, labeled Toolkit. From there you have 4 available tabs. Remote, Storage, Backup and Support.

On the Server side of things.............

The Remote tab gives you access to tools to help with troubleshooting and configuration of the Remote Access web site.

Of particular interest is the Remote Access Website Configurations button. Here you can adjust the Session timeout of a Remote Access connection. The default value is 20 minutes for an idle connection. This can also cause large downloads and uploads to fail. You can change this value up to 24 hours.

The Storage tab gives you access to diagnostics for server storage. And after you run the diagnostics, you can view the log.

The Backup tab allows you to wipe out the backup database (yes, this deletes all backups). This could help you recover from a problem that might require a full re-install to correct otherwise.

And you can change threshold in number of days before WHS will start nagging you about a client not being backed up. And very cool, it apparently can be set on a per computer basis! So, if you have kids that are out of the house all week and their laptops are only home on Sunday, you can change their settings to accommodate their lifestyle.

The Support tab gives you the ability to upload the Server logs to Microsoft to help them assist in troubleshooting issues. You're given the CAB number to provide to MS so they know what file to look for. Its basically a GUI presentation of the TalQ diagnostic tool from the beta days. You can also get a Command Prompt window, directly from the WHS Console and view the Event and Tracing logs that are relevant to WHS.

On the Client side of things............

There are two ways to run the Windows Home Server Toolkit on a client PC or even on the Server if you're logged in via a local keyboard or RDP. You can either run the basic EXE which will give you a dialog like the following:

And then open a new Internet Explorer window with something like this:

Or you can run the Toolkit in Advanced mode. The documentation says to open a Command Prompt window and change to the Program Files\Windows Home Server\Toolkit directory and type in clienttroubleshooter.exe -a to run the utility in Advanced mode. Unfortunately the filename is connectortroubleshooter.exe, but that's not a big deal. Even easier?? Copy the Start Menu shortcut, add Advanced to the name and put the -a after the command line to run it. When you launch it in Advanced mode, you'll see the following:

Click on the Server menu bar item and you'll see Publish Server Add-in. This automatically sends a copy of the relevant MSI file to the \\Server\Software\Add-ins folder, so you don't have to do it manually.

Click the Run All Tests button and you'll see something like this:

Now, you can see here, that everything went fine until it got to the Application compatibility check. It seems that it doesn't like the name of one of my installed programs, but I couldn't find anything the indicated which one it was!

And now for the good part. Here's where you get it!!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=DE10C0E9-2D46-4770-91FE-6B84AE06F960&displaylang=en

Now for the bad part. According to the documentation, the Toolkit should install as a WHS Console Add-in, the same way all the other Add-ins are supposed to install (copy the MSI file to the \\Server\Software\Add-ins folder, then open the WHS Console, go to Settings, Add-ins, Available and install it. I could not get it to install this way. However, I finally just used Remote Desktop to access the server, navigated to the \\Server\Software\Add-ins folder and double clicked on the MSI file and it seems to have installed itself just fine.

Windows Home Server Add-ins | We Got Served

2007-10-14T04:40:46Z

This site has some of the newest and handiest Windows Home Server Add-ins available. One I particularly like is the Program Launcher add-in. Great for getting into Regedit, Command Prompt or just about any other program you need to run from the WHS console. http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/...(read more)