It seems that Microsoft is inaccurate in how you can get a WHS key for 120 day. In this page it tells you that you can either stick with the 30days evaluation or join Microsoft Connect to get a 120 days key. However that is not the case. After joining I tried to get one, but the site was not giving me one. In the troubleshooting section I read about many other users that were having the same problem and it turns out that what you have to do is download a different WHS version AFTER you join the MS Connect program.
While WHS seems to be working great, having it work for 120 days would provide a better understanding of its features, many of which are set on a monthly basis, which is something people in the program have pointed out. However, till this time there is no official response as to the misleading suggestion that you get a key after joining (which is not true; you get a new .iso to burn) or as to why the feature to get a key even exists in the site.
I would have liked to be able to test the monthly backup settings before buying it, but the platform suits me well enough and I’m fairly impressed, so I will buy it as a gift to myself during xmas.
November 28th, 2009
So I finally decided to do this thanks to, in no small part, the fact that you can download it straight from Microsoft and have 30 days of full use (or 120 if you do some other stuff mentioned there, which I intend to do shortly). But the old PC I was using as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) was a little too weak for this. However it is not too weak to become the new communications PC (running only Skype and Chrome). So begun the switch.
OLD SCHEME:
1. NAS: Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 512MB ram, Intel D865 Perl M/B, Siluro FX5600 (AGP)
2. CommsPC: AMD64 3200+, 1GB ram, MSI K9N Neo2 M/B, Sapphire Radeon X1950Pro (AGP)
NEW SCHEME:
1. WHS: Old CommsPC with the GPU from NAS as the WHS doesn’t require anything really.
2. CommsPC: Old NAS with the X1950Pro (because you never know… and it did provide me with a benefit I did not foresee at the beginning, more about that later)
Stage 1: X1950 in the Pentium machine, all well, installed Skype and Chrome, sound check in Skype, done.
Stage 2: Siluro in AMD machine.
Problem 1: Machine will not start, not even bios. The MSI m/b would throw beeps, one long two short (code for error with VGA). So I removed the Siluro thinking it was toast and pulled into active service a retired Manli FX5200. Same problem. I was getting worried and upset. I knew Siluro worked, it was working in the NAS. Tried it again, still beeped. Changed the cards many times, for no good reason really, but as a trained PC user and builder my instincts were good and one time Siluro worked. Perhaps the AGP connector is getting peculiar in its old age…
Problem 2: WHS bootable DVD would not boot. Well, not exactly, the system would find the bootable disc and it would seem to try to do it, but every time it did so, the VGA signal was getting cut off and the monitor would go to sleep since it detected no signal. This was much harder to figure out. Tried removing power consuming devices one by one till I was left with only the VGA and a hard drive. Didn’t help. Tried another DVD drive I had around, a Plextor reader (instead of the normal Phillips writer), still nothing. Many, many crazy things later I decided to go irrational. Again, for no reason, I changed the connection between VGA and Monitor from a D-Sub to a DVI. All worked fine. There goes the D-Sub connection of the card (broken or temperamental stuff start piling up).
Stage 3: Installing the WHS.
Problem 3: This was just a matter of personal preference, but when I build a system I like partitioning it. And I don’t like logical partitions all that much. So WHS complained that I did not have 65GB of space in the primary disk drive. Of course not, it was a WD 36GB Raptor. Remove that, change it with a WD 500GB disk, installation commenced.
After very few input I had to give the installation starting working and never bothered me again. After about an hour I was confronted with a bare desktop and a warning to (paraphrasing) “please logoff and work from the Connection app from your other PCs as messing around locally can really screw up stuff, thank you”. Very well, but of course, I had to check it out first.
Problem 4: No network installed. No worries, I said naively, run the Network setup wizard. It would not of course, and after the second time that the wizard simply vanished after I started it, I went to the System module in Control Panel. Ethernet card detected but not installed. This was really surprising, especially considering it had detected and installed the Siluro FX5600 perfectly. Why would a server know more about VGA cards (which can easily be substituted with a generic VGA driver since they are only needed for the initial setup as they go head-less for the remainder of their service) than NICs is beyond me. I downloaded the driver pack for the motherboard from the MSI website and put it in my USB stick. WHS saw the stick and I did an update driver for the NIC (stands for Network Interface Card, if you were wondering). WHS said there is no driver for it in the stick. Trying to calm down, I run the setup program from the stick, which specifically said that it would install the Ethernet driver. Finished fine, rebooting the system, still the driver was missing. I then thought to go to the source; searched for Realtek Gigabit drivers, found a driver pack, and that did the job. At long last.
Everything from then on was (and still is great). Pointed my PC to \\server\Software and found the installation for the WHS Connect app that allows management of the server. Too tired to do anything more, disconnected the server and put it back where the NAS was (hidden away with just power and net cable connected). Put the new Comms PC behind my TFTs and was suddenly overcome with a desire to use the ViewSonic’s vertical orientation feature. This will give me better view of documents and browsing which is now its sole purpose. The Sapphire helped immensely by using the CCC (Catalyst Control Center) to rotate the resolution and everything worked perfectly.
November 27th, 2009
I am researching Windows Home Server prior to the installation of it in the coming days and I found out this little bit of info from Microsoft herself. It is contained in the Windows Home Server Technical Brief for Drive Extender at the end of the brief, also to be found as general tip in the Wikipedia entry for WHS in the section Features – Shadow Copy.
Disabling Volume ShadowCopy Services and reclaiming the disk space
1. Run mstsc.exe to start a Remote Desktop Connection session to your home server.
Caution
Be careful when using a Remote Desktop Connection to your home server. You can damage Windows Home Server functionality if you use it incorrectly.
2. Open a Command Prompt, Click Start, Run and type CMD
3. To delete all of the existing volume shadow copy snapshots and reclaim the disk space used by the snapshots, type vssadmin delete shadows /all
4. To disable the Windows Home Server storage manager service from taking future snapshots, type regedit
5. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Storage Manager\Volumes.
6. Find a sub key which has a MountPoint value equal to D:
7. Under that key set the value of SnapPeriod to 0
I consider this an important tip as it is not every day a company tells you not to use a feature in their software.
November 26th, 2009