My Windows Home Server Comes To Life
Wow, so much has happened since I last visited here and a whole bunch of it revolves around Windows Home Server(WHS). In my last post I had a list of the things I wanted out of a WHS installation. I did go ahead and build a WHS for myself (setup is really easy, even on hardware that I mostly had just laying around) and managed to get all of that functionality(or equivalent(or work around)) and more. Lets go over the list:
- Basic web sites: really easy with WHS and a free add-in called Whiist.
- Andromeda script: I actually gave this up. I carry enough music on my iPod and if there is something I really want that isn't there I can sign into the WHS from the web and download the files. This is behind NT authentication the way I wanted it to be.
- Storage for my music collection: Basic WHS functionality to act as a file server. Added bonus of being accessible from the web and smartly zipping all the files you want into a single download when downloading. Nice.
- Runs Slimserver (When did they change the name to SqueezeCenter?): So far doing this just fine.
- File shares for Music, software, common documents, scratch area, etc: again this is basic WHS functionality. It is even very easy to control access to the various shares and allow some users full access, partial access or even no access.
- Connected printers shared to the workstation: I don't think this is supported but once you get the printers setup it works just fine. I did have a bit of a struggle finding Windows Server 2003 drivers for my HP Photo printer. Printer companies are going to have to realize that more and more "consumer" printers are going to need drivers for Server 2003 (and 2008 if WHS moves there)
- Custom service to update my DNS entry when my IP changes: Services has been running fine but is not needed nearly so bad since you can use your Live ID to get a domain entry at <your_super_special_name_here>.homeserver.com and WHS will keep it updated automatically.
- Scheduled Syncback SE job to copy files to the backup server: no longer needed but now I want the ability to copy my backups off the WHS to an external drive to back them up. This is supposed to be coming with WHS Power Pack (or maybe not)
- Keep Foldershare up: Yes, but I still need to keep a user signed in. Since WHS applies updates and reboots automatically I have to periodically check to make sure it is still signed in. Yuck. I'll be checking out DropBox and Live Mesh as soon as I can wrangle invites to the betas.
Overall I freaking love this thing.