Windows Home Server Power Pack 3

Power Pack 3 for Windows Home Server is available to download today.  Login to your Windows Home Server and click on Windows Update. More information on Power Pack 3 here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/pp.mspx

 If you have installed any of the beta versions, you will need to follow the instructions here: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowshomeserver/archive/2009/11/24/power-pack-3-instructions-for-users-running-pre-release-versions.aspx

WHS Connectivity Problems

I have had some problems with my home server over the past couple of weeks. It all started when I tried to install the latest Power Pack (Power Pack 2) for Windows Home Server. In reality the problem had nothing to do with Power Pack, but the update process highlighted that my Internet connection for the home server was down. This was due to the issues with my Netgear router (see previous blog entry), but in trying to fixing it I thought it was a firewall issue. In trying to identify the problem, I set the firewall settings back to their defaults.

Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but I am using a Tranquil Harmony Home Server and you can only connect to it remotely (via a remote desktop connection). The firewall defaults are to deny file & print sharing AND remote desktop connections. Duh! I realised about 10 seconds after hitting the restore default button what I had done.

To fix this, you need to connect to the Tranquil server directly. Fortunately this is fairly straightforward. Remove the rear face plate (just three screws) and you will find a VGA, keyboard and mouse sockets (see photo above). This will allow you to logon to the machine directly without having to use a remote desktop. Just set the firewall settings back to normal (firewall set to "ON", but file & printing sharing and remote desktop selected on the "Exceptions" tab). And bingo, you are back in business.

Once you have the back plate off, the motherboard assembly just pulls out of the front of the unit. The motherboard and hard disk all come out as a single unit. There are a couple of screws on the top of the unit that allow you to remove the hard disk and access the memory. There is a single module - PC2-5300 DDR2 - I just happened to have a spare 1GB module, so I swapped it for the 512K already installed.

Power Pack 1 (PP1) for Windows Home Server went live today!

Well, the long awaited Power Pack for Windows Home Server (WHS) finally went live today. You will find the update package here and the release notes here.

It fixes the data corruption issue that some users have encountered (you only run into this if you have more than one hard disk in your home server) as well as providing 64-bit support (which you will need if any of your client PCs are running 64-bit Vista or XP). The install on the server is straightforward (it does require a server reboot) and the connectors on each of the client machines should update themselves automatically once the update has been installed and the server rebooted.

I seemed to run into an issue which required my router to be rebooted as well, but I am going to put this down to coincidence (it does happen, but not all that often).

I am running WHS on a Tranquil 7-HSA and it works really well. I had to get an update to the BIOS from Tranquil to change the boot order. The server seemed to be set up to boot off an external hard drive by default, if one was present. This doesn't matter unless (like me) you use an external hard drive to back up your server. If you leave the external drive attached and the server needs to be rebooted, you have to remember to unattach the drive while it is rebooting. A quick email to the support folks at Tranquil help fix it - they sent me a BIOS update on a flash drive.