By on August 25th, 2012

Migrate to Windows Server 2012 Essentials from Another Server

Rong Yu, program manager on the Windows Server 2012 Essentials team has written an article on how to migrate to Windows Server 2012 Essentials from another server:

“One common scenario for migration is that users want to upgrade from a previous version of Windows Small Business Server (Windows SBS) or Windows Server. You may also need to migrate from another server running Windows Server 2012 Essentials in the case of a hardware upgrade.”

Rong guides us through how to install Windows Server 2012 Essentials in migration mode and then goes on to tell us how to migrate our email too.

WS2012e Migration Tool

You can find Rong’s post here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 25th, 2012

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 194

home_server_show_small

It’s that time again for another episode of "The Home Server Show" podcast.

And in this week’s show:

The Windows Server 2012 Essentials Release Candidate is now available so we are trying to make some sense of it compared to the last version we saw.  We also briefly dive into the topic of where you keep your server. Do you keep it in a closet, by your desk, etc?  Where is yours? Some news, follow up, and a brief conversation about customer service via Twitter.  Enjoy.

You can grab episode 194 from here.

News • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 24th, 2012

Add-In: My Movies for WHS 2011 v2.12

My Movies for Windows Home Server Logo

Add-in My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 had an update today to version 2.12.

Here’s the change log for this latest release:

  • Added: Better failure information on blu-ray TV Series that cannot be converted because of missing disc mapping.
  • Added: Facebook login.
  • Changed: Info on converter profiles in settings is now shown in a popup box instead of as a tooltip.
  • Fix: Depending on settings, the dashboard could crash when configuring video encoder settings.
  • Fix: Uncommon issue on WHS 2011, where the reading of audio tracks on a DVD included tracks there weren’t set to be active.
  • Fix: WHS console could crash if you previously had it configured to store MPEG 2 files or folder and MPEG 2 files, which is now part of video converter.
  • Fix: Monitoring list did not show correct icon for items identified by original disc id.

More details on My Movies for Windows Home Server are available from here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 24th, 2012

The Library Feature in Windows 8

Paul Thurrott has an article on overcoming the Library limitations in Windows 8 which is a great read for Windows Home Server users.

The article reminds us how the library feature functions and then goes on to tell us how to add removable storage and network locations to a library which is what us Home Server users will want to do.

Windows 8 Library Removable Device

You can read Paul’s post here.

Tutorial • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 23rd, 2012

Microsoft Has a New Logo after 25 Years

For the first time in 25 years Microsoft have their selves a new logo:

Microsofts New Logo

…the new Microsoft logo takes its inspiration from our product design principles while drawing upon the heritage of our brand values, fonts and colors.

The logo has two components: the logotype and the symbol. For the logotype, we are using the Segoe font which is the same font we use in our products as well as our marketing communications. The symbol is important in a world of digital motion. The symbol’s squares of color are intended to express the company’s diverse portfolio of products.

Microsoft Logo Makeup

From The Official Microsoft Blog.

News • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 22nd, 2012

Add-In: LDisk-D v3.0.0.5

LDisk and LDisk-D Comparison

The add-in LDisk-D has been updated to version 3.0.0.5

This add-in adds iSCSI Target Storage/SAN capability to Windows Home Server-2011, Windows Storage Server-Essentials, and SBS-2011-Essentials. Using LDisk™ or LDisk-D, you can create a single appliance to provide all your storage and backup needs.

This latest release has licensing changes

More details on LDisk-D are available from InteliSAN.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 22nd, 2012

Western Digital 1TB Black Enterprise Hard Drive for $100

newegg are selling the Western Digital 1TB black enterprise 7200 RPM SATA hard rive for just $99.99 with free shipping. The RE4 WD1003FBYX 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" internal HDD normally sells for $149.99 but are currently on sale for $99.99 saving $50 off of the price.

WD RE4 1TB Enterprise HDD

Western Digital RE4 1TB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Enterprise Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Deal of the Week • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 21st, 2012

Windows Server 2012 Essentials Release Candidate (RC) Available

Windows Server 2012 Essentials has just gone to Release Candidate (RC) stage.

Windows Server 2012 Essentials RC is available

WS2012e RC is now available for you to download and evaluate the  Windows Server Essentials and Small Business Server blog informed us today. Being the successor to WHS 2011 here are just some of the major changes in RC:

  • Increased support for importing your own SSL certificates. Previously, customers had to do a lot of work to configure domains obtained in our domain wizard by using SSL certificates that were acquired outside of our domain wizard. We have now updated our wizard, which should make this process much simpler.
  • Installation of only critical setup updates during setup. One of the things that all Microsoft teams care about is getting customers up and running as quickly as possible. With the RC release we have changed our logic to only install critical setup-related updates during setup time. This might not seem to be a big issue if you only occasionally install Windows Server 2012 Essentials, but to partners that install Windows Server 2012 Essentials often, this change will make setup faster and more predictable. Note that customers will continue to select the update strategy that they want to use after the server has been set up.
  • Windows SBS Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) changes. We have updated the BPA rules to include the latest set of rules and have also made it possible to ignore specific BPA rules by using our UI.
  • Office 365 changes. We have now made it easier to import existing Office 365 users into Windows Server 2012 Essentials.
  • Verified DHCP supported. Windows Server 2012 Essentials supports turning on the DHCP role and setting a static IP address for the server.

The post also announced that WS2012e would be generally available by the end of 2012 and that some additional software which would be released over the coming weeks which would work with this RC release:

  • Windows 8 companion app. Customers will be able to access Windows Server 2012 Essentials through a number of different client apps: a Remote Web Access web browser, our Windows Phone 7 app, and the brand new Windows 8 companion app. We are especially excited about the Windows 8 app because it not only makes it easy to access files and folders on the server, but also supports offline access.
  • Windows Phone app. We have updated our existing Windows Phone app to work with Windows Server 2012 Essentials. The phone app now allows customers to access files and folders on the server.

So what are you waiting for? You can download this RC release of Windows Server 2012 Essentials from here.

From The Windows Server Essentials and Small Business Server Blog.

News • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 21st, 2012

The new Balancing System in StableBit DrivePool

StableBit have an article on their blog about the 1.2 beta version of StableBit DrivePool.

The article takes a look at the new balancing system, which can be built in or third party plug-ins:

“…a balancer is responsible for moving pooled files around the individual pooled drives. Keep in mind that this is only happening on the pooled physical hard disks and you will not notice any difference in file placement on the pool drive itself.”

DrivePool_Disks_Rebalancing

You can read the article here.

News • Windows Home Server
Full Story
By on August 20th, 2012

Add-In: StableBit DrivePool v1.2.0.6716 BETA

StableBit DrivePool have released version 1.2.0.6716 BETA.

Stablebit_drivepool_M4_logo

This latest beta release includes a new balancer plus fixes. Here’s the full change log:

  • Do not shift the balancing markers around on the UI, while balancing.
  • Fixed excessive re-measuring on reboot.
  • Added a new balancer type for equalizing disk space usage on volumes that are located on the same physical disk.
  • File mover is now capable of re-balancing individual pool parts on the same storage unit.
  • Implemented pool part equalization calls into balancer framework.
  • Fixed Duplication Space Optimizer / Duplication Obstruction balancer formula. Was moving too much data.
  • Fixed perpetual balancing when pool has files with sizes < 128 B.
  • Re-enable background I/O in new pool balancer.
  • Added limit markers on the DrivePool -> Disks tab. Indicates real-time file placement limits.
  • Do not allow balancers to request a duplicated file move unless we have more than 2 storage units.
  • When requesting to move all files, attempt to move unprotected files first in order to satisfy the move quota, since this is simpler.
  • Updated the file mover to be more persistent when building the duplicated file move model. In particular, when emptying a storage unit completely.

More details on the beta release of StableBit DrivePool can be found here.

add-ins • Windows Home Server
Full Story