Have You Ever?????

[DVDR_Dog]

Have you ever done something and wonder later "Why the heck did I do that to myself"? Well if you have welcome me to the club.
Stupid me saw a mint condition Acer (hate Acer) easyStore H-341 Home Server and brought it home to play with. Anyone else ever played with Windows Home Server? I am still trying to log into the darn thing. For some reason I have been attracted to NAS devices lately, don't ask. (I am thinking boredom?)
First thing is this wonderful little device has no video out and it's not exactly a powerhouse. 32 Bit Atom processor, maxed out at 2GB. I get it that it's not a workstation but WTF! How are you supposed to set it up or troubleshoot it if you can't get in? Now mind you someone may have tossed this B/C it stopped working but doesn't look like it was used much at all. I removed the drive with the O/S and got the server name. (the key is
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Transport\Server]
"Name"="{self}"
"LateThisMachineName"="{server name}")
Big deal I got the name it doesn't acknowledge that either. If I want local video I have to get some special cable or I have to try and find a PCI-e 1X port card. Good f'ing luck with that one.

So being the dog I am I have latched onto this and won't let go. I'll probably end up running some other software on it but this box has very limited hardware. They kept it that way to minimalize power consumption since it is a 24/7 box.

Oh well it's a departure from the AI services I have running here. I think I may start having company over here so I will shut the darn stuff off so it minds it's own business.

Has anyone else tortured themselves with WHS or similar. Please help a dog out if you can.

 

[starhawk69]

I'm certainly no expert on servers but I did find this:
"Windows Home Server was based on Windows Server 2003 R2 and was intended to be a solution for homes with multiple connected PCs to offer file sharing, automated backups, print server, and remote access. It is paired with the Windows Home Server Console—client software accessed from another computer on the network to provide a graphical management interface. The configuration interface was designed to be user-friendly enough that it could be set up without prior knowledge of server administration. The configuration interface, called the Home Server Console, was delivered as a Remote Desktop Protocol application to remote PCs while the application ran on the server itself, the GUI was rendered on the remote system. The Home Server Console client application could be accessed from any Windows PC. The server itself required no video card or peripherals; it was designed to require only an Ethernet card and at least one Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer."
Just as I suspected it was intended to be administered from a remote computer running the console client software, in this case Windows Home Server Connector. Some NAS can be accessed thru any regular browser, but this requires the specific software console. You'll still need a valid login and password.
Hope thats some help.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Thanks Starhawk69. Problem is I can't get the remote computer to even acknowledge the existence of anything on the network let alone the WHS server. Like I said it's more a stupid challenge which truly lights me up. Some would look as it as a waste of time. It's nothing different than I encourage other users to do, it's a darn good way to learn at least for me.
I led a 5+ mile hike with a bunch of people through the hills around here in the heat this morning so it's not like I am sitting on my butt all day. It is looking more like a hardware failure although w/o video who knows? I guess new out of the box this thing was easy. Acer has discontinued all support and deleted most relevant documents and downloads.(Surprise! This is another reason I am so fond of Acer.)
So unless I can dig up a rare video card for free and I won't pay $30 for the cable adapter, it might be back in the recycle pile for this beauty.
If anything changes I'll post it. Might be a learning experience.

 

[ThumperTM]

Never used windows home server before, sorry.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Well it turns out Windows 10 doesn't like this variant of Windows Server 2003. I did a net view and got a SMB1 error which basically means Win 10 considers WHS a security risk. I could go in and turn that stuff off in the remote console but screw it. I don't feel like doing this to every machine that I want to access this box and it creates a security risk.
I just guessing because I can't find anything to confirm or deny this. This may be why it was ditched in the first place.
Just an FYI I get this stuff for free so no biggie. Not sure where I am going to go if anywhere with this box. It's pretty pathetic when it comes to resources other than big storage drives.

 

[starhawk69]

Yeah, Microsoft stopped supporting WHS back around 2014, so security is about zero, even Windows says so. You could always set-up a local network with no internet access, but there are a lot of ways to do that without having to install WHS Connector (which appears not to work properly in Win10). I know how it is trying to get old obscure machines working, I spent months refurbing a Sony Viao from 2001. It had a video capture card in it and nothing I tried got it to work. The rest of the machine worked fine after some work. I even have the original driver disks, after some research I found out that those card had problems from day one and never seemed to work properly. Still use it as an XP box, everything I ever wanted in a Windows XP machine, only had to wait 18 years to get it.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Wow Starhawk talk about thru the past darkly. I think the entire VFW (Video for Windows) thing drew me into Windows machines. It's a shame M/S abandoned some of the older DOS pieces of it and it's certainly not as fun as the old days. I am talking about the emergence of the mp4 video codec and all the "improvements" that followed like DiVX Alpha 3.11, mov, wmv and then the other variants that emerged as well as the earth shattering mp3 audio codec. Most of us had to pay dearly for many versions of many of these codecs at the time.
I still can't figure why the Motion Picture Group still charges a royalty for the mpeg2 codec. DVDs are about dead and if they only charged for the encoder it might keep them going for a while longer.
M/S completely rewrote the video capture rules and did kill a bunch of hardware as you well know. Hardware does to seem to be more cross platform friendly now. Well enough of the old dog reminiscing.
Time to figure out what I can get to run of this hardware. The fact it uses so little power makes it very attractive for a NAS. Wish me luck.

 

[jamvaru]

maybe generic usb video 'card', useful in some other case, so not such a 'waste'
obviously put linux on it, windows is only good for if your work requires it, lol; or video games of course
ironic that windows pros become linux pros because it is the best solution for the windows question, except those 2 scenarios, or maybe if you really really like microsoft office