Doug's Place

My Blog has moved to http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/dougknox/default.aspx

 

Regards,

Doug Knox

 

Ok, as I've mentioned previously, Windows Home Server allows Remote Access to the PC's on your home LAN, that support being a Remote Desktop Host.  You can also access the Server after you log into the web interface and go to the Computers tab, but...... you only get the Windows Home Server Console, not the full Home Server Desktop.  There are two work-arounds for this.

 

1) If you're behind a hardware router, forward TCP/IP Port 3389 to the Windows Home Server machine's LAN IP Address.  This way you can use the Remote Desktop client to access your Windows Home Server's desktop directly. 

 

2) On the Windows Home Server (either from the console or via Remote Desktop), open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Inetpub\Remote and locate the rdpload.aspx file.  Open this file in Notepad.  Locate the following two lines:

 

MsRdpClient.SecuredSettings.StartProgram = "HomeServerConsole.exe -r";
MsRdpClient.SecuredSettings.WorkDir = "c:\\Program Files\\Windows Home Server";

 

These tell the browser based RDP session to use HomeServerConsole.exe as the "shell", with a command line parameter to tell it not to show the Minimize and Exit buttons.

 

Replace the two lines, above, with the following two lines:

 

MsRdpClient.SecuredSettings.StartProgram = "Explorer.exe";
MsRdpClient.SecuredSettings.WorkDir = "c:\\Windows";

 

Which tells the RDP session to use explorer.exe as the "Shell", which it normally is anyway. You can make other changes to the RDP settings, such as setting a timeout for idle sessions and others.  Be careful though, if you don't know what you're changing.

Now, when you access your Windows Home Server from outside your LAN using the web interface, when you select Connect to my home server, from the Computers tab, you'll see the standard Desktop inside your browser window.

Jessica Zahn, a Program Manager on Microsoft's eHome team, announced the following on thegreenbutton:

"People can continue using their V1 Media Center Extenders with an XP-based PC, but for those who plan to buy Windows Vista compatible extenders in the future, there will not be any rebate program for the V1 devices."

We had been hoping that some accomodation would be made for the early adopters of v1 technology, but sadly, that won't be the case.

One feature missing in Windows Home Server Beta 2 is the ability to remove a client PC from the list of computers that are to be backed up. Why would you do this, you ask?  Son or daughter goes away to college, joins the Peace Core or becomes an anti-technology street mime.  Suddenly the computer is no longer available to be backed up.  But its still joined to the Windows Home Server and the server will still want to back it up.

 

A solution is here.  See http://www.dougknox.com/whs/whsremoveclient.htm for a small Visual Basic program that will allow you to remove the unwanted client PC from the Computers and Backups tab in Windows Home Server.

 

Note: This software is only intended to support Windows Home Server Beta 2.  As such, it should be considered Beta software and is not supported.