Today is the 3^rd anniversary of Windows Home Server, and I would like to tell you why I think you need one for your family.

 

For those of you that don’t know, Windows Home Server is basically Windows Server 2003, with a stripped down user interface and added features that make it simple to setup and use.

 

Why would you want a server in the house? Aren’t they normally for big corporations with lots of employees? Yes. Most servers are designed to store and manage massive amounts of data and control who has access to that data.

 

Home server is different because it was designed from the ground up to work in a family environment. If you have more than one computer in the house, you could probably benefit from having a home server. And with the Power Pack 3 update that came out a month or so ago, it has improved dramatically.

 

There are a couple main reasons to get a home server:

 

 

 

The main reason I setup a Windows Home Server was the Automated Backup feature for the seven computers in my house. Once the Home Server is setup, you take the Connector CD that comes with Windows Home Server around to each PC in the house and install the connector software. This is a small client that sits on each PC and communicates back and forth with the Home Server.

 

Once the Connector software is installed, Home Server recognizes the computer and asks you if you want to setup a backup schedule for that PC. You say Yes, and step through the wizard to create the backup schedule. You only have to do this once for each PC in the house. After that, Home Server takes over and automatically backs up that PC according to the schedule you set up.

 

Now, if you mistakenly delete a file that you needed, you just click on the Home Server icon in the lower right hand corner of the task bar, open up the most recent backup for that PC, and restore the file you need.

 

If you have a bigger problem like a virus or your hard drive crashes, you just insert the Windows Home Server Recovery CD, which also comes with Windows Home Server, reboot the PC, and the recovery CD connects to the Home Server, you choose to recover that PC, and Home Server walks you through restoring the entire PC to the state it was in when you made the image. There’s no more hunting for your installation CD’s, no more tracking down Printer and Scanner drivers. Just walk through the recovery wizard and you are back up and running.

 

 

One of the options you have during the setup of Windows Home Server is the ability to create a personal web page. This has been one of my favorite features of Home Server since I installed it.

 

Let’s say you have created a few shared folders on your Home Server. There is one for your Pictures, one for your DVD Collection, one for your Music Collection and a final folder for your Documents. Windows Home Server enables you to create different Users and give those users either Read permissions, Write Permissions or Full Control to any of your shared folders.

 

I created a user on the Home Server called “Remote”, gave him a password, gave him Read permissions and checked a box that gives “Remote” the ability to connect to my home server from the Internet.

 

Now, if I am at the office or in a coffee shop and want to listen to some music that isn’t on my iPod, I can fire up my laptop, go to mywepage.homeserver.com, log into the Home Server and download the music I want.

 

You could give your relatives this username and password as well. Then they could login to your web page, go to the Pictures directory and look at all your family photos.

 

I have also used this feature to save my butt a couple times. Have you even been about to go into a meeting and realized that the document you worked on last night was still at home? This has happened to me, but with the Home Server, it was not a big deal. I fired up my laptop, connected to the Home Server, went to the Documents folder and downloaded the file directly to my laptop. You can do this with Music, Photos, Movies, PowerPoint presentations, Spreadsheets and Word Documents.

 

 

You don’t realize how nice it is to have one location to store all your media and documents until you actually do it. Before Home Server, I had multiple copies of music, pictures and documents scattered over seven different computers. Locating a particular file was like going on a treasure hunt. Not only were things next to impossible to find, but multiple copies meant less storage space.

 

With one central location for all my media, there is no more wasted space, no more multiple copies and no more wasted time looking for a particular file. Now everything is stored on the Home Server and each of my PC’s have mapped drives to those folders. Windows Home Server also has a great feature called File Duplication that you can turn on for these shared folders. File Duplication makes a second backup copy of your important folders and stores them on a separate hard drive on the Home Server.

 

 

With Windows 7, these shared folders on the Home Server become even easier to use. Windows 7 has a new feature called Libraries and what Libraries basically do is to take the My Documents, My Pictures, My Music and My Movies folders from each PC in the house, and gather them under a common group on each PC called the Library.

 

Suppose you go on vacation and you bring your camera and your Laptop. You take tons of pictures and download them to your Laptop. When you get home, all your old pictures are stored on the Home Server, but all these new vacation photos are stored on your Laptop. If you go to the Den and open the Pictures Library on that computer, you will see the Pictures folder on the Home Server, as well as the Pictures folder on your Laptop. From the Den, you can drag the photos from the Laptop over to the Home Server, or you can leave them there.

 

This works the same way with music. If you store your music on your Laptop, and your spouses music is on their Laptop, they all show up under the Music Library, no matter which computer they are located on.

 

 

With Media Center coming standard on most versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, there is a good chance you already have Media Center on at least one computer in your house. If you also have an XBOX 360, you have everything you need to take all those Photos, Movies and Music off your computer and experience them on the big flat screen TV in the living room. If you are a Netflix subscriber, that opens up an additional 12,000 movies and TV shows that you can stream to your TV at any time.

 

All of your media is stored on the Windows Home Server. Your main PC in the office is running a version of XP, Vista or 7 with Media Center included and you have an XBOX 360 hooked up in the living room. The Media Center takes all the media stored on the Home Server and enables it to be viewed with what is called a “10 foot interface” which means you can sit on the couch and watch it on your TV rather than the “2 foot interface” you are used to. If you turn on the XBOX 360 and pair it with the Media Center PC, you can now watch all your Movies, listen to all your Music and watch Picture slideshows on the television. You can control all of this with the controller for the XBOX 360, or you can pick up a remote control for around $25.00 that lets you sit on the couch and have total control of all this content with a simple to use remote control. Plus, you can watch all those movies from Netflix if you are a subscriber.

 

 

If you have an unused computer and a spare hard drive taking up space, you can buy the Home Server software for $99.00 and build your own Home Server for next to nothing. You can even download a free, fully functional, 30 day evaluation copy from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx

 

If you want a new Home Server, there are manufacturers such as HP and Acer that offer sleek, well-made Home Servers for as little as $250.00.

 

Huge amounts of centralized storage; the ability to access your media anytime, anywhere; integration with Media Center and the 360; automatic backup for all of your computers…What more could you want?

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