You had me at "Hello World" : Windows Home Server

"Access Denied" When Accessing a Share in Windows Home Server

HelloWorld — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:49:49 GMT

This is the scenario, as WHS Administrator, you granted yourself access to a specific share, and you are trying to connect to that share, and then you get an access denied error message. What is going on? You are currently have some work open, and you pretty much does not have time to reboot your machine, or log off then log back on.

When you access a share, Windows keeps sessions. It seems like this session caches permissions of this particular user. I am not really sure how often this session got refreshed. What you can do:

Logon to your WHS machine using Remote Desktop: mstsc /v:[Your WHS machine name here].
Go to Computer Management applet: Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management
Go to this node: System Tools\Shared Folders\Sessions.
Look for a session with your PC name and your logon. Close that connection by right clicking your connection and select Close Session.
From your machine, try to connect to your WHS folder again. Voila, it works now. Your WHS will create a new session for you.

Disclaimer, closing sessions abruptly may cause some undesirable result, use it at your own risk. I would suggest to make sure that the number of open files is zero (You can view how many open files are there on the snap in itself).

Other workaround that might work, open a cmd console, and access your share from that console box. Often it works, but I am not sure if it will work 100%.

Home Server Power Pack 1 is Released!

HelloWorld — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:48:42 GMT

Finally it is released! If you are using Windows Home Server, please take a look at WHS team’s blog http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2008/07/21/power-pack-1-come-and-get-it.aspx.

Power Pack 1 is available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1A6AEF46-DB57-401F-814F-6EFA26E7A1E8&displaylang=en.

I love this product, more than once, backup on my WHS saved me. WHS system backup is also very good to rollback my system. I created a manual backup after fresh install for all of my machines, and after my machines are fully configured.

A friend of mine was moving, and he did not have a laptop. I loaned him my laptop, gave him the laptop in a clean state after restoring the laptop from the fully-configured backup. After he returned the laptop to me, I restored the laptop from the backup that I made before I gave him the laptop. He could install all the applications that he wanted, and it won’t matter to me. :)

Windows Search 4.0 was Released

HelloWorld — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:21:31 GMT

Shame on me, I just found out that Windows Search 4.0 was released. Check this kb article on what is new, and to get the download link.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940157

btw, it has a package for Windows Home Server. :)

Fresh Install Backups and Windows Home Server

HelloWorld — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:33:41 GMT

I was building a new Vista Media Center, and replaced XP Home on my old laptop with XP Professional. It always take quite some time until I configured my machines the way I like it.

This time, I have Windows Home Server ready, after I configured the machines, I created a manual backup of my machines, WHS will keep manual backups until I delete them.

If there is a catastrophic failures with my machine, I can rebuilt to the configuration that I am comfortable with quickly.

Stay at Home Servers

HelloWorld — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:42:00 GMT

What? You have not heard about Windows Home Server? Check out this site: http://www.stayathomeserver.com/.

I think this is one of the greatest product from Microsoft. If you ever had a broken hard drive, and spent four five days to rebuild it just the way you like it, you will love the system recovery feature of Windows Home Server. I encourage you to check it out!

Windows Home Server

HelloWorld — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:39:00 GMT

I received an email from my friend, he has not heard about Windows Home Server yet. This is a really cool product that targets home users. With this, none of your home pc is an island.

To highlight some of its features: daily backup, password synchronization, share photo and home videos through the web, expandable storage space, and much more.

If you have more than or equal to one PC at home, you don't backup your data (especially those vacation pictures), you should check it outnhere http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx.