Windows Home Server – A user’s Experience

30 days on, is it all over?

It’s been 30 days since I installed WHS and I got an interesting message via the WHS console today, apparently my 120 day evaluation is over. Now….maths has never been my strong point, but, according to Windows Calculator, 120-30 = 90, so I should have 90 days left. Luckily after a reboot of WHS the message disappeared. I’m starting to get the feeling that the evaluation version of WHS was thrown together in a bit of a hurry.

These little annoyances (5 week delivery, pain-in-the-butt upgrade path and this latest piece of misinformation) spoil what is basically a very good piece of software, ironically they have all been faults of the evaluation version and would not have occurred if I had bought the retail version.  A little odd really when you consider that people who are using the evaluation version are basically………well….kinda evaluating it.

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Why the difference?

As you could probably tell, I was a little miffed about the “upgrade” path for the 120-day evaluation version of WHS. Well, now it’s even worse…….

I applied for a 180-day evaluation version of MS Project 2007 yesterday, and guess what? No 5 week wait for the DVD’s to arrive, I could just download and burn the image file to CD, and……during the install I get the nice message “You can upgrade to the full version at any time”. So, why do WHS users have to reinstall an entire OS, when MS project users don’t even have to reinstall the program? That was not a rhetorical question by the way, I’d really like to know.

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I have to do what after 120 days?

My plan was quite simple, pay £5 ($10) for the 120 day evaluation version of WHS, and then after 120 days simply hit the big upgrade button that Microsoft would obviously provide for me. Then I’d probably be wizzed off to an MS webpage, enter my card details, and my evaluation copy would be changed to the full version.

It turns out that there is no big upgrade button, ok, so what’s the worst case?…. I buy the retail version and simply use the serial number, enter it into my 120 evaluation version and Bob’s your uncle…..well….no, you can’t do that either. This is how it works:

1. Order (and pay) for free evaluation copy.
2. Wait 5 weeks for delivery.
3. Install…..realise WHS lacking required Ethernet drivers….find compatible drivers.
4. Realise UPnP not working…..fix problem.
5. Install Addins.
6. Make tweaks to suit.
7. Setup accounts for other users.
8. After 120 days, buy retail version and repeat steps above.

I’m a little confused, do MS want people to upgrade after using the evaluation copy? If so then why not make it easy for them? Considering the effort involved in getting it all working the way I wanted it, I’m now tempted just to try building a Linux server.

The only way to move from the evaluation version to the retail version is to install the retail version on top of the evaluation version, this does retain your data, but requires any users to be recreated, and any settings to be reapplied (source).

Of course there is one way to minimise the effort required when installing the retail product, and that’s to buy it sooner rather than later i.e before too many settings/tweaks/addins are made….a cunning plan!

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View your Server’s motherboard information via the web

By combining Motherboard Monitor and Whiist it is possible to generate a web page that displays the information from your server’s motherboard (CPU & HDD temperatures, fan speeds etc) without having to know any HTML.

Procedure:

1. Download Motherboard Monitor and save to one of the WHS Shared Folders.
2. Remote Desktop to WHS and install Motherboard monitor.
3. Configure Motherboard Monitor for your server’s motherboard (NForce2 for me).
4. Open Motherboard Monitor and select Interval & System Log. (Fig.1)
5. Select Enable interval log and then check .HTML.
6. Select an appropriate time interval (I set mine to 3600s i.e. 1 hour).
7. Select a location to save the file, I put mine in a d:\shares\users\mark\websites\monitor.
8. Change the filename to “index”
9. Select the maximum number of interval entries. I choose 50, which meant I’d have just over 2 days worth of entries (because I was logging every hour)
10. Select Apply.

Motherboard Monitor is now logging every hour, and saving this information into index.html. Unfortunately it’s only doing this when you’re logged into your WHS. To get Motherboard Monitor running even when no one is logged in we need to run it as a service.

1. Download the AnyServiceInstaller and Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools and copy to the Server desktop
2. Install the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit to the default directory
3. Run AnyServiceInstaller and enter the required paths and service name:
   • C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools
   • C:\Program Files\Motherboard Monitor 5\MBM5.exe
   • MotherboardMonitor
4. Click Start and then right click on My Computer and select Manage.
5. Select Services and Applications, and then Services, then right click on MotherboardMonitor in the list.
6. Select the Log On tab and then check the This account radio button. Enter the Server administrator log on username and password and then click OK.
7. Restart the PC.

We can now use Whiist to define the chosen folder to be a website, and to add a link to our WHS Home page.

1. Download Whiist.
2. Copy to your WHS Add-in directory (usually (\\server\software\add-ins).
3. Open your WHS console and select settings-addins and choose Whiist.
4. In the main WHS console page select the Manage Website tab.
5. Select +Add, and then click next when the wizard appears.
6. Select the option to Create a new website that can be accessed from the internet.
7. Give the website a name (e.g. motherboardmonitor), and browse to the folder where you opted to save the index.html.
8. The next page will give you some configuration options, choose the options that suite you.
9. On the next page enter a name that will appear on the WHS homepage, and click finish.
10. Your website will now be listed under the Manage Websites tab in the WHS console (Fig 2).

When you now access your WHS homepage you should see the link (Fig 3), clicking on the link should open up the index.html file generated by Motherboard monitor, it’s not pretty (Fig 4), but it is informative.

Fig 1.

Fig 2.

Fig 3.

Fig 4.

Next post – I have to do what after 120 days?

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UPnP, Firewalls and Firewalls

After the install WHS attempted to configure my router, and this appeared to work initially. Upon further investigation it seemed that WHS was failing to configure the router via UPnP, and I was getting error messages via the WHS console. My Netgear 834GT does support UPnP, but for some reason WHS was failing to forward the required ports. I opted to configure the router manually by forwarding the following ports:

• TCP 80 (required for HTTP)
• TCP 443 (required for HTTPS)
• TCP 4125 (required for Remote Desktop)

All the above ports were forwarded to the Server internal IP (e.g. 192.168.0.2)

Unfortunately, even with these changes there were still problems. It turned out that my ISP (Plusnet) was also providing me with a broadband firewall which was ON by default.

I accessed the advanced options for the ISP firewall and opened the required ports. Remote access to WHS now worked without any problems, although WHS was still displaying warnings in the Router Configuration Details page regarding UPnP, Web Site Connections and Remote Access Connections. As it all now works I’ve not bothered to investigated why WHS thinks there are issues, I assume that WHS is just failing to communicate with my Netgear 834GT router.

Next post – Using Motherboard Monitor and Whiist to view your Server CPU temperature via the web

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The Hardware and Installation

I decided to install WHS on an old PC that I no longer had any use for. My trusty old Shuttle SN41G2(v1). The Spec:

• AthlonXP 2200 CPU
• 2×512Mb Ram
• 2×320Gb PATA Hard Drives
• DVD burner (not required after WHS installation)

This PC has passed its best, and I was struggling to find a use for it, and then along came WHS. It easily exceeds the WHS basic requirements i.e. 1GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 80GB of free space on the primary drive, and an Ethernet connection.

I’d read some worrying forum posts that mentioned issues with NForce2 montherboards, but I’d hoped that these issues were only with the WHS beta release, and that they had now been resolved. I decided to plough on with the install.

I inserted the WHS Install DVD and booted the PC….all seemed to go well, it took quite a while, and there were many reboots, but it installed without a glitch. When I say installed I mean that WHS was now on the PC, unfortunately there was one driver issue, the network card. Looks like WHS (or strictly speaking Windows Server 2003) did not have a compatible driver for the NForce2 onboard network card. A server without a network connection is like a geek without an RSS reader, it would just sort of sit there and do nothing, wondering what was going on in the world around it. Anyway, a bit of research suggested that old WindowsXP NForce drivers would do the trick, and they did (specifically nForce_2.45_WinXP2K_WHQL_english). After the driver install WHS found the network….and then my router, my trusty Netgear DG834GT.

Next post – UPnP, Firewalls and Firewalls.

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The Delivery Process

I ordered my WHS 120-day trial online on 11th November 2007. After completing the order I was surprised to learn that it could take up to 28 days for delivery! OK, it’s a free trial, but I did have to pay £5 ($10) for postage. It’s 2007, I’m used to ordering something before 4 O’clock today and having it arrive tomorrow, and usually with free delivery. Anyway, I wanted it, and it wasn’t available for download (….again Microsoft, it’s 2007!). So I paid my money, after all, it just said “up to” 28 days, I figured they were just covering their backs…….they weren’t.

After a couple of weeks I became impatient so I gave Microsoft a call……have you ever tried calling Microsoft? You can’t just call the operator and say “put me through to Microsoft”. The invoice they supplied me with had no contact information, so the web searching began. I found a number that looked vaguely promising, and after being transferred (more than once) I finally managed to speak to someone who new what WHS was, and had a record of my order. I enquired as to the whereabouts of my software….the replay, “We don’t track orders”, a quick check of the newspaper laying beside me, yes, it really was 2007, and the largest software company in the world apparently didn’t track orders. OK, it was my fault for being impatient, the invoice said 28 days, and it had only been a few weeks. I decided to chill out a little and wait the full 28 days.

28 days after I placed the order I called Microsoft again, I said “It’s been 28 days, where’s my software”, the reply…..

“Oh Sir, it’s been 28 days since the order was placed, but the order was not shipped until December 3rd, you have to wait up to 28 days after the order has been shipped”

This was probably the first point at which I almost gave up on WHS.

Next post – The Hardware and Installation

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Introduction

I’m writing this blog to document my experience building a home server using a 120-day evaluation copy of Microsoft’s Windows Home Server (WHS). I hope to describe the painful 6-week delivery process, the initial installation, and the eventual realisation that in 120-days I would have to go through it all over again.

I’ve started this blog about 2 weeks after first installing WHS, so I have a little catching up to do in terms of posts. Within the next few days I hope to include my 2nd post, entitled “The delivery process”.

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