Windows Home Server 2011

[Andy Horn]

Now before Ian marches me off to the courtyard at noon to be blindfolded and placed in front of the Penquin firing squad for mentioning WHS 2011.

I found that I can a buy a brand new copy of this OS off eBay for less than £37 all in, which seems to be a bit off a bargain, although it is £37 more expensive than Ubuntu Server!!

WHS 2011 may appeal to those not wishing to spend a lot off time getting a server to work how they want it to, I am not saying WHS 2011 is better than Ubuntu Server but it maybe easier to configure as M$ will no doubt hold your hand through the whole process-and say stop you don't want to do that you baffoon.

Maybe not as flexible as Ubuntu Server but non the less perhaps an easier alternative.

From what I can gather a big improvement to the original WHS, but some say it is worse because in WHS 2011 the Drive Extender has been dropped in favour of a more traditional Windows drive lettering system, which personally I would prefer.

In my case it could help solve a big media serving issue as WHS 2011 supports Xbox 360's out of the box, well at least that's M$ claim.

But there again XBMC will do that and with MKV support which I believe is not present in WHS.

OK Ian, can at least put on the blindfold when I get to the courtyard.

Andy........

[Ian]

Hi Andy,

I've been itching to try out the moderator control panel on this forum and your post has provided the excuse for me to learn what all the options do. I wonder what the "ban user" button does?? Just kidding.

Seriously, thanks for the info. When I was setting my server up a few years back WHS was not an option but at £37 it's worth a punt, isn't it. It certainly seems like an attractive option for those people who'd rather not delve into the unknown by trying Ubuntu.

One of Microsoft's visions was to "own" the home entertainment arena and it looks like this new version of WHS is bringing them one step closer to that dream

Ian.

[Andy Horn]

Hi Ian

M$ have not released a trial download for WHS 2011, I would have given it a bash on different HDD in my server just to see first hand if it is any good.

If I hadn't of learned so much of this forum, the guide and yourself (Ian) then WHS would have been on my shopping list, but I feel I have gone to far with Ubuntu to turn my back on it now.

XBMC-Live news.......

I knocked together a test build last night all went well on the second install, the first time I installed XBMC-Live I partitioned the HDD with LVM , which would not allow me to boot to XBMC only to a shell.

Yes I know I said I was going to boot off a USB stick but XBMC couldn't see the USB drive.

The only issue I have is I can't access my server from it, XBMC-Live ask's for a username and password, which is odd because I have XBMC installed on a Win7 Lappy and it can access the shares no problem, my guess it is something to do with both XBMC-Live and the server been Ubuntu based, thoughts?

One thing I may do is dual-boot said lappy with Ubuntu desktop and install XBMC on that and see what occurs.

Andy

P.S Yesterday I was given a Dell Poweredge server , so I think I may rebuilt my current server into its case, on second thoughts I could strip out the case and live in it

[Ian]

Sorry Andy, not much insight on the prompting for a password. I guess as a test you could allow "guest" access to your shares and permission the folders so "everyone" can view them. If you can then access your shares without issue you'll have a starting point and can work backwards. If you still can't access them then I'd be stumped

Re your Dell server, why don't I ever get given nice toys like that?

[Andy Horn]

Lol, I guess I must be in the right place at the right time!!

It is an old Poweredge P3 CPU!!

I got a workaround working for XBMC and Ubuntu server, XBMC will take content via Upnp so I simply installed MediaTomb on the server and all is well.

Although I do find it strange that my Win7 lappy can access the server from XBMC and when I boot the same lappy into Ubuntu 10.04 desktop it works just the same, so my problem must have something to do with the XBMC-Live install on my HTPC

Andy

[Kryspy]

I have used Windows Home Server 2011. It is an okay out of the box solution. At the end of the day it is Windows with a pretty UI and all the bloated overhead that comes with it. I guess you could use the lipstick on a pig anaolgy

The connector software that you are supposed to load onto each of your PC's to manage the server and the server manage your PC backups is pathetic. It is the most bloated piece of software I have ever seen. It brings my dual core atom desktop to it's knees while loading and takes forever.

Kryspy