Connect your EX490 WHS server up onto your LAN/WAN (I won’t go through all of the steps to completely setting up your server, just the part of changing the IP settings) and power the server on.

I used Windows 7 Professional to do this and nothing else was tested. Open My Computer or any other Windows Explorer window. In the left pane, you will see a list of Favorites, Libraries, Homegroup, Computer and Network. If all has been set up properly, your WHS should show up in the list under Network. If so, right-click on the name. You will see a short list of options:

- Expand
- Connect with Remote Desktop Connection (RDC)
- Open in new window

Choose the option to connect with RDC.

A new session window will pop up prompting for a User name “Administrator” and Password. The password should be what you had initially inserted to set up the server. When you put that in correctly, it will open a new full-screen window with a small bar at the top of the screen displaying your server’s name.

From here, it’s the exact same process as if you were setting the IP configurations for a new system.

Click open: Start > Control Panel > Network Connections…and right-click on Local Area Connection and choose Properties.

In the small box, scroll down to “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Select that option and hit the Properties button just under the box.

Select the option to “Use the following IP address” and input your information there. Usually the IP & Gateway addresses start with a 192.168.1.XXX address. The Subnet mask for a home network is 255.255.255.0 for the address scheme of the 192 group.

The DNS information is almost the same, except if you use an online DNS proxy like http://www.OpenDNS.com (free account and no monthly or yearly fees…provides great protection for traffic going OUT of your network…and keep those pesky kids from seeing the wrong websites, pictures or movies!!!…hint hint..mom’s and dad’s), then you would input the IP addresses that they give you when you sign up for a FREE account. That’s right…great service for FREE!!! I am not a representative or employee of OpenDNS.com…I just really like their services because they’re free, and I can use it to protect my child.

Once you input the information, hit “OK” and Close. After that, you will want to restart your server to refresh the IP address and DNS information…or you can do this:

Click open: Start > Run. Type in “CMD” for the command prompt. Then, type in the following command:

Not quotations = “ipconfig /flushdns”. This will reset your current DNS settings and will load what you had set in the Local Area Connection window just a second ago.

I hope that this helps all of those who have been really banging their heads against the keyboards after endless research and time spent trying to do this easy little task.

Take care.

Brob

I have also been having some issues with WHS. I have setup port forwaring via my DLink DIR-615 router. I can access internally via network / console or remote desktop but in the console it states that my router cannot verify accepting remote access or web site connections. I’ve been surfing for a week now to try and figure this out. I have a static IP address assigned to my WHS only with all my other machines obtaining automatically. I have spoken with my ISP and these ports are not blocked. I have shut down the firewall on WHS, I’ve even tried DMZ through my router and it still will not succesfully configure within the console. I’m now thinking it is my router but wanted some feedback to see if anyone else had any comments before i ditch the DLink.

Tried to setup a static ip address (for Port Forwarding) but I stumble straight out of the blocks – I can’t seem to get a MAC address from my WHS machine. When I type ‘ipconfig /all’ into the command line, all that is returned is ‘Windows IP Configuration’.

Any Ideas – I’m tearing my hair out!!!

in the most configurations it is recommended, to use the IP address of the router also as DNS server (and NOT the IP address of the ISP, as Phil stated).

So you avoid the trouble, that clients and server try to register their network connections on the DNS server of the ISP, which will fail.

Also name resolution for your WHS may go wrong, if your clients try to resolve the WHS name at your ISP instead of your home network.

Best greetings from Germany

Olaf

My Belkin router F5D8230-4 doesn’t allow Static DHCP. When I tried static IP with DNS server same as default gateway, all my PCs lost internet connectivity. Why is this?

I know your article above specifically says to use the actual DNS server from ISP. My ISP refused to give out at IP. My router status page doesn’t show it. Is there a tool to find out what my DNS server’s IP is?

Is it OK to assign a static IP but have WHS obtain DNS automatically?

If I don’t have any apps installed on WHS, is it OK to go ahead with dynamic IP? Will the remote access (and photo sharing in HP EX470) work if the WHS IP changes?

MikeC

It sounds like you will need to let the ports through manually with port forwarding in your router and/or the firewall on your PC is blocking the ports also.

That does sound right, that way all other address’s are out of the way.

Thats what the WHS software message is under routre configuration detail.

Configured not verified.

Keep trying and it will not verify.

Website setup with HPhomeserver.com

Help?

You are correct and thats exactly what I do with my Linksys.

If I enter the MAC address of my Windows Home Server and give it an IP address of 192.168.1.100 will that mean the WHS will always get that IP address and I don’t need to do any of the above?

In what way cant you verify that it is not accepting remote access connections. Can’t you navigate to the web interface?

I have a Vonage router with my wireless netgear router behind it with all my computers and HP home server.

I cant set up the Remote access.

I cant verify that the whs is accepting web site connections nor can I verify that it is accepting Remote access connections.

Will static setup fix this?

O, of course. I was looking in the Home Server Console.

Thanks.

Herman

You need to use the Remote Desktop Connection on Vista or XP to connect to your server as a remote connection. You will them see the desktop of your server machine and the start button in the bottom left hand corner.

I don’t see any Start buttuon within the server??!?!

Thanks for your help.

Herman

You can change the server workgroup to the name you are currently using. The only thing you may have to do afterwards is too reinstall the connector software on the client PCs as they may not find the server after the name change.

I can see that I can change it using remote desktop, but don’t know if its a good idea?

HP MediaSmart 475 ( new ) so still playing {:-)

Thanks for the info.

I had to do these things for a reconnect:

1) a registry key on my client VISTA PC

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Transport\Clients\{08E2E743-B368-4F5A-8D1B-686139702ECB}\IPAddress

2) add a host entry into the hosts file

PS: I use a samba server for DNS and WINS (home network)

Usually you get this by

1. add the WINS ip into the TCPIP configuration on your WHS

2. reboot the WHS.

WHS’s automatic router configuration routine seems to run on its own accord from time to time. I’m talking about the program that runs when you go into WHS Console, click Settings, Remote Access, then under Router, click Details, then click Refresh.

I’m almost certain that, if you’re lucky enough to get the automatic configuration routine working, it’ll re-assign the forwarding address inside the router *automatically*, to point ports 80, 443 and 4125 at the WHS server, on a schedule that I don’t yet understand.

Has anybody else seen anything similar happening?

I totally agree. The ability to set the workgroup name would be easy to implement but I can imagine that getting the WHS configured automatically to use a fixed IP address during installation would be a nightmare for the home server team to setup.