Pedro Innecco

I read a few weeks ago in some of the Windows Home Server forums that some enthusiasts are trying to install Linux on a HP MediaSmart server. While I do find it to be a quite interesting exercise, I fail to see the benefits of replacing Windows Home Server with a copy of Linux, particularly since HP has their own Linux-based home servers, plus it would be probably cheaper to build a custom one.

On a personal note, I rather like the idea of having a Windows-based server at home. But I do miss having the ability to play with Linux hacks. So I was thinking what I could do to have Linux as an option at home when I came with a solution where I could have both Windows Home Server and Linux on my MediaSmart server running at the same time: Virtual Server.

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The HP MediaSmart server comes with some handy add-ons, such as the iTunes server (for those who have an IPOD) and an addition to the web server called Photo Webshare, which allow users to create and share pictures through the web, straight from their Windows Home Server (WHS). Sounds cool, right? Well, not for me it doesn’t.

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Feeling like getting a Windows Home Server (WHS)? I must say, the product really rocks! Well at least in theory. In practice, the product has been overwhelmed with bugs. I am not only talking about the well known data corruption issue. There are other issues that could really drive you nuts. I’ve been using the WHS without any issues so far, but that is because I am only making use of 40% of what I originally wanted to do with it.

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One of the first things I decided to do with my Windows Home Server was to install a VNC server on it. VNC is an open source solution (i.e.: free) that allows remote access to a computer in a similar way that of Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). However, because my Windows Home Server is a headless computer which can only be accessed remotely with Microsoft RDP, the installation of VNC is not as straightforward as it seems. In this documentation I’ll explain how I successfully installed VNC on my Windows Home Server.

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The idea around this documentation is to modify the M34 software set-up to allow it to run as a Windows service under Windows Home Server (WHS).

A while ago, I acquired a Siemens DECT (cordless phone) to use at home in my office. I opted for Siemens first because they’re a market leader in DECT phone, and also because they had an interesting product called M34; a USB device which would allow a computer to join your DECT set-up.

With the M34 device you could do things such as remote control your computer over the telephone, have Skype calls routed to your phone system and other sorts of data transmission between your PC and DECT set-up. I got the M34 with the objective to set it on a home server, as soon as I could get one.

However, the M34 software was built around a desktop perspective. That is, its supporting software that communicates with the device were built to interact with users that are logged in into the PC. It technical terms, this means that the M34 software was not designed to be ran as a Windows service.

This documentation is a work in progress which I would like to share with people interested in using the M34 with a WHS. It is by no means a final documentation, but by sharing it with the world I am hopping to get more users interested in finding the best solution around setting the M34 with WHS as a Windows service. If there is any progress on this project, expect this documentation to change over time. Otherwise, consider it to be just the published results of my initial tests!

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Since an unfortunate even last year with an IBM “DeathStar” hard drive which almost cost me all of my files, I have been evaluating the prospects of acquiring a decent Network Attached Storage (NAS) with RAID (which is geek for disaster control). This is what I am looking for: Read More »