Thank You For Choosing Shaw – 15Mbit Extreme

A number of years ago, well before MPECS Inc. was conceived, we had an ISP connection that was cable based and was extremely fast for the day. Then along came Shaw.

Since things went sour back then Shaw has come _a long way_ to bringing both their services and their customer service levels up. Since we have a few clients that are fortunate enough to have cable access in their businesses we have had our fair share of working with Shaw over the years. Thus we were able to see the improvement in their services and customer service firsthand.

So, as of today we switched out our home 3Mbit DSL connection for a Shaw Extreme 15Mbit connection and boy oh boy is there a tangible difference in the way our Internet runs here:

That is 1.29MB/Second with the rate bouncing up and down between 1.56MB/Sec and 1.24MB/Sec. The download is a test download of Windows XP Mode from Microsoft.

This is a Call of Duty: United Offensive demo game download from Activision.com:

This one bounced around between 2.30MB/Sec down through 1.84MB/Sec with it settling in at close to the 2MB/Sec mark.

Now, this is all fine and dandy since the time here is just around when kids will be coming home from school. Since cable Internet is a shared pipe, the real test of the new setup will be to run the above download tests during “peak” usage times to see if we still have those speeds.

With speeds like this, ADSL service seems almost stone age at 6Mbit . . . though one of our local DSL providers has just started offering 15Mbit speeds.

And one more thing, with a Windows Home Server sitting on our network beside our old SBS 2003 R2 box there are no issues with Shaw’s dynamic IP as our homeserver.com DNS has already changed to the new IP address.

Our home network is a prime candidate for Microsoft’s new SBS 2011 Essentials “Aurora” product when it RTMs. This is because our local Outlook clients here connect to our company’s Exchange servers instead of the local SBS 2003 R2 Exchange 2003 to keep things simple. Monique and I share calendars, task lists, contacts, and more via Outlook and Public Folders.

We will probably end up running SBS 2011 Essentials on one of HP’s new MicrosServers or maybe building a small box to run the OS. We have not had any time to test the product in its beta form yet.

UPDATE: I managed to finger fumble publish the post in WLW.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Installing Windows Home Server “Vail” Beta On An Intel SS4200-EHW NAS box

The new version of Windows Home Server is now a public Beta and can be downloaded from the Microsoft Connect site:

• Windows Home Server Beta on Connect

Since we are dealing with Server 2008 R2 code, we can mount the ISO and copy its contents onto a high speed USB flash drive and run the install from there.

We are currently doing that on a hacked apart Intel SS4200-EHW NAS device:

The primary drive is a 500GB Seagate ES.2 drive. Note that in the image below the SMART status of the drive is BAD. We replaced it with another drive out of that pile of project drives before running the OS install. We will install additional drives once we see that things are settled in with the OS.

The SS4200-EHW comes with an Intel Celeron 420 CPU that is EMT64 capable.

But, it only has a 512MB PC2-5300 stick of RAM which is half of the minimum required 1GB of RAM. So, we dug around the parts bin and found a 2GB Kingston KVR667D2N5/2G stick. Once installed, we booted into the BIOS and found 2048MB of RAM available to us.

Since the SS4200-EHW is headless with no VGA connectors whatsoever, we needed to find a PCI-E 1x video card as that is the only slot available to us on the motherboard.

Again, in the parts bin we happened to have an ATI FireMV 2200 quad port PCI-E 1x video card. The card can be seen without its mounting bracket in the above image.

Once installed, we will be copying our multimedia archive onto the unit as well as configuring the PC backup with some of our workstations here in the shop. We will then crash one of them and use the restore disk to see how the recovery goes.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Router/Firewall Ports To Forward For Windows Home Server

There are two ports that need to be forwarded at the router/firewall to the Windows Home Server box:

• 443 HTTPS TCP (SSL Web)
• 4125 RDP Proxy Port (RDP connections to the desktops)

Note that the 4125 proxy port is inherited from WHS’s bigger cousin Small Business Server 2003.

Port 80 is optional in that it redirects to 443 anyway. So, we suggest leaving that port closed and remembering the “s” in the WHS URL.

Once the remote access firewall ports are properly configured we see the following on an HP based WHS:

And the following on an Acer based WHS:

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Automating the Windows Home Server Backup for the WHS?

One of the little surprises that we have run across with WHS is the inability to schedule a backup of the WHS unit itself!

We plugged in a large USB hard drive to back things up with, and ended up running into a roadblock when looking through the WHS Console and all of the settings locations for a backup scheduler.

This is a bit of an odd puzzle since the unit is supposed to be a _server_ for home use! :(

So, to get a scheduled backup, we need to go to a third party tool set and configure a key stroke macro to run via the Task Scheduler.

No sense reinventing the wheel, so have a look at the following instruction set on where to get the tool and how to configure it on WHS to get a “scheduled” backup:

• MediaSmartServer.Net: Automating the Windows Home Server Shared Folder Backup

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Home Server IE8 Update Hangs?

In our case, we are just setting up the HP MediaSmart Server and thus running the available updates.

This update run seemingly stalled:

Notice that it is stalled at IE8.

Now, the above screenshot is actually a clipping since the Update Windows Home Server screen covers the entire WHS Console window (it is maximized).

Having seen so many IE8 updates, it was readily apparent as to why things were at a standstill.

But, how do get to the IE8 setup dialogue box?

An old Windows 3.x method: Click on the top left corner of the update window on the Windows icon:

 

Click Move and hit any arrow key on the keyboard and the updates window should actually window itself to reveal the IE8 dialogue sitting in the background waiting:

While we have come a long way in the Windows world, there are still some threads of Windows Past included in each and every version. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

HP MediaSmart Server = Neat

We are setting up a home network for one of our clients.

We are just in the process of setting up the Windows Home Server box by HP.

What a neat little box! It is almost bullet-proof in its set up routines and uses a very easy console for management.

At the SMB Nation Fall conference fellow MVP Kevin Royalty crashed a laptop that was being backed up by a WHS box. He had it restored to a new hard disk in under 2 hours.

That was a pretty killer demo and sold me on installing WHS HP boxes at client sites to backup key workstations.

And ... The HPs do Mac backup and selective restores! The HP Media Vault series coming down the pipe will actually do a full backup and restore of OS X Macs.

They are definitely something to look into.

Philip

Sent from my SBS Integrated Windows Mobile® phone.
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Vista and Blu-ray and the LG GGC-H20L Optical Drive needs updates

For the last Intel Channel Conference we paid for the afternoon desktop build session to work with Intel engineers on their new desktop technologies.

The system build was to be a Blu-ray and HD-DVD capable system. No OS was included in the session. We opted for Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1.

The configuration:

• Intel DG45FC Mini-ITX
• Intel Core 2 Duo Desktop Processor E8500
• 4GB Kingston 800MHz DDR2 RAM
• 320GB Seagate Momentus 7200.3
• LG Super Multi Blue GGC-H20L
• In-Win BM-639 Mini-ITX Case
• USB based wireless (don't have yet).

When it comes to the motherboard, we made sure to install and update all of the relevant drivers from the CD that came with it along with updates via Intel's Web site.

For the LG optical drive, we were not going to run with any of the software on the accompanying CD because the OEM version of software products tend to be missing some key component or other that we would subsequently be directed to the software manufacturer's Web site to purchase.

Since Windows Vista does not support Blu-ray out of the box, we needed to run with third party. We decided to check out the included OEM PowerDVD product which is version 7 after all. Of course, this is a special edition for the OEM packaged product while CyberLink's site shows version 8 as current.

One of the installation options on the LG CD was a utility to check for any firmware updates applicable to the LG optical drive. Given the newness of the technologies in the optical drive, checking for firmware updates was a good idea.

Sure enough, there was one to bring the new drive's firmware up to 1.03:

LG Optical Firmware

The download was somewhere around 6MB in size and a reboot was not requested once installed. Just in case, we rebooted the box.

The CyberLink PowerDVD product required an update to 7.3 that was about 103MB in size.

Once we had the two updates in place, we ran a Blu-ray of Kung-Fu Panda and it looked astounding on our 22" shop wide LCD. It will look even better when tied into a wide screen LCD television via HDMI which is built into this motherboard.

Note that PowerDVD version 8 does not support HD-DVD decoding: Does PowerDVD 8 support HD DVD playback? From the link:

After Toshiba made their announcement that it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD format discs and the fact that there will be limited new title releases in HD DVD format, CyberLink has decided to remove HD DVD support from PowerDVD 8. However, CyberLink will continue to support and maintain HD DVD movie playback in PowerDVD Ultra (version 7.3).

Now, after a bit of research as a result of the above, we came up with this gem from the We Got Served blog: How To: Play Blu-ray and HD DVD Movies from Vista Media Center.

The suggested products are a software player that integrates with MCE which PowerDVD also does not do:

• Blu-ray/DVD Archiving to Disk: SlySoft’s AnyDVD HD
• Blu-ray/HD-DVD Payer: ArcSoft’s TotalMedia Theatre

We will be purchasing the above software to round out our new home theatre PC.

And, at some point in the near future we will put together a Windows Home Server to sit beside our home SBS 2003 R2 Premium server! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Windows Home Server Resources and Business Opportunity

Some Windows Home Server (WHS) resources:

• Windows Home Server Team Blog
• Windows Home Server Support Page
• Windows Home Server Solution Center (Technical)
• Windows Home Server Forums
• Windows Home Server: Getting Started Guide (PDF)
• MS KB 939424: You receive a disk-related error message or a network adapter-related warning message when you try to install Windows Home Server

We had a chance to work with WHS during its beta cycle. Lately however, we have been pretty busy so there has not been too much opportunity to spend too much time with it.

We have ordered our Windows Home Server Eval Kit and are awaiting its arrival now.

We are starting to see some interest in WHS with our clients, so we will be delving into WHS when the Eval Kit arrives. While WHS is being promoted as a plug-n-play setup, many of our clients would prefer a professional set it up for them.

WHS is a possible niche market for us ... we shall see.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Mac on SBS - iTunes Add to Library import...

Hmmm....

A simple setting can mean the difference between a Mac running and a Mac not running when importing multimedia into iTunes.

Howz that? Well, if someone has a Windows Home Server, or other device with a large multimedia repository, one could end up in a storage pickle on their Mac.

If one wants to catalogue the contents of those folders on their Mac via iTunes, there is a setting therein that could cause a problem.

After clicking File-->Add to Library and navigating the Folder Chooser to the shared multimedia folder, iTunes goes off gathering a list of the contents of the folders. If, after starting that process, one walks away the little 160 GB drive on this particular iMac could have eventually been plugged up!

It seems that iTunes also pulls a copy of the multimedia file across the network onto the local Mac machine.

Ummm.... Not!

The following setting change is critical to avoid that kind of situation:

Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library

One needs to make sure to uncheck that option before starting the Add to Library process. This way all of the multimedia files are catalogued in iTunes only. :D

Might want to verify if iTunes on PC also does the same thing.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Windows Home Server CTP - Are you sure?!?

Heh, I get the idea that maybe, just maybe, Windows Home Server is aimed at home users! ;)

How do I come by that?

The following:

I need to "acknowledge" that data is going to be toasted on the install drive or partition by placing a check mark in the appropriate spot before the Next button comes available.

And then, the following once the tick mark has been placed beside "I acknowledge..." and Next has been clicked on:


Let's make doubly sure that the installer understands that they are about to toast their drive or partition!

So, after clicking on the "Yes" button, off the install goes.

Not too sure on the plural of "... hard drives ... " in this window though. May have to look at what happens when more than one partition or drive sets exist on the system.

In all reality, those of us who install SBS on a very regular basis see this kind of warning/acknowledge dialogue at the beginning of the second phase of the SBS install regularly.

An example SBS based warning would be the, "more processors present than supported" when installing on multi-core systems with two physical CPUs. We acknowledge the warning and continue on with the install unimpeded.

In my opinion, this multiple warning for the setup of WHS is a good thing for the end user type to see.

If this type of hand holding continues on into the actual management of the Windows Home Server, it would be good for the end user. It may however, be a bit of annoyance for a support professional. We shall see...

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Windows Home Server CTP

Okay, I bit in:


I am not totally sure where WHS is going to end up relative to SBS in the grand scheme of things in regards to support needs.

So, I decided to look into it and see what can be seen.

I suspect, once it is released, that we will start fielding calls for support.

I also suspect that it will be another avenue of revenue for our company.

UPDATE: Oops... should have added some links.

Windows Home Server Beta Site. Fill out the survey near the bottom of the page if you are interested in becoming a beta tester.

The Windows Home Server Blog.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists