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Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Prev, RC & RTM

Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:05 pm

I felt your pain last night downloading from the Asia server, got stuck @ 80% so I gave up & restarted w/ the Europe server, that was better but got stuck @ 97% though. It finally did finish.

Burned the DVD/ CD's last night &
I plan on installing it tonight after work ^*^

I wonder if the WHS ...homeserver.com page has been updated much.
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:38 am

Last night I tried backing up the main rig, it failed.
Tonight I'll take my time & set-it-up properly & try again.

I reset the router to default settings & tweaked the port forwarding & UPnP settings, now my WHS Vail website is working again.

Here are some screenys.

To install the (other PC) connector software one has to download it from their server, (notice Mac is also included)
Image


Default WHS Vail web page
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Customized web page w/ a old shot of yours truly
Image
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:51 am

I finally got all the PCs here backed-up w/ the Vail Refresh OS & prepared a spreadsheet of the server space used for analysis.

NTS I took a bunch of screenys & drilled down into several .dll & .exe files looking for the "real" version number as I noticed a few posts on the net w/ people referring to this build as RC0.

Anyway here is a shot of the Disk Manager, note Vail has the infamous 100MB hidden partition like Windows 7 & I suppose Server 2008 R2 does also?
DE Disk 33MB @ top & way bigger @ the bottom... strange.
Image


Here is the Server Folders & Hard Drive summary tab.
Image

Edit: I switched out the Disk Manager screeny w/ a better one
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby yeshuas » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:12 am

I downloaded it as I said earlier, but haven't burned the disks to install it yet.

do you do like an update or is it a uninstall and start over process????????
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Sun Aug 22, 2010 1:41 pm

I did a clean install which wiped both drives, although reusing the old backup data sounds easier, if it works.
The release notes (recommended reading) say on page 6:

Issue
Drive Extender data from earlier Vail beta versions are incompatible with this version.

Description
The low-level data format for Drive Extender has changed with this release and is no longer compatible with data written by Drive Extender in earlier versions of Vail. Drives that were used as part of a server storage pool in an earlier version of Vail will show a status of incompatible version in the Hard Drives tab of the Dashboard. Incompatible hard drives can still be added to the default storage pool, but all data on the hard drive will be lost.

Solution
Before installing this version, copy all server folder data from server storage to an external USB drive or to a client computer. After installing, copy the data back to the server storage folders.
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby yeshuas » Sun Aug 22, 2010 1:57 pm

I think I am going to get a couple 1TB or bigger HD's and do a clean install onto a smaller HD using the larger HD's as the storage for the Backups
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:56 am

yeshuas wrote:I think I am going to get a couple 1TB or bigger HD's and do a clean install onto a smaller HD using the larger HD's as the storage for the Backups


I am using 2 - 1.5 TB Hdd in my Vail setup.

-----------------

Last night & today I ran a WHS Vail server backup to a 1TB external SATA Hdd over a USB 2.0 hook-up.
Before I crashed last night I checked how the BU was going & took a few screenys.

I forgot to disable the client PC in the setup so the WHS was running a simultaneous BU of the Main Rig & the WHS, why-not try that, I figured as it was a bit late to stop it :lol:
Both backups were successful according to the Vail Dashboard.

Today when all was done I added the #’s to my spreadsheet analysis & the figures show that:
The total data on the 3 PC’s = 968.63 GB
The total data on server from the BU’s (after letting some of the air out) = 657.1 GB
The total data, shared & system files on the external drive (after letting some of the air out) = 591 GB
So it appears that WHS Vail doesn’t copy the dups when backing up the PC or when backing up itself.

Here are a couple of more screenys.

Image

Image
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Sat Sep 04, 2010 5:43 pm

I installed a new large SATA Hdd on a PC here (w/ a VT CPU).
Next I installed VMware workstation v 7.1.1 downloaded from VMware, w/ Windows 7 Ult. x64 as the host OS.
On my first try (thinking I knew how to do it) the install failed @ the NIC driver detect towards the end.

Luckily I found a link to a step-by-step how-to HERE.

I allocated 2GB of RAM & 165GB of Hdd space (160GB is the minimum specifiedd for Vail).
The complete install took about 1 hour & was successful.

Here a couple of screenys:

Processor configuration
Image

Network type
Image

Summary
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New install
Image

License
Image

First desktop
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Security Essentials failed to install
Image

VMware tools install
Image
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:41 am

I got MS Security Essentials installed by just using another version.

This one worked
mseinstall-en-us-amd64.exe

This one failed
mssefullinstall-amd64fre-en-us-vista-win7.exe
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Re: Windows Home Server code name "Vail" Public Preview is now a

Postby shreader » Tue Nov 23, 2010 7:58 pm

Today it appears that MS has changed direction on WHS Vail by removing DE.

Windows Home Server code name “Vail”– Update
When we first started designing Windows Home Sever code name “Vail” one of our initial focuses was to continue to provide effortless support for multiple internal and external hard drives. Drive Extender provided the ability to take the small hard drives many small businesses and households may have acquired, and pool them together in a simple volume. During our current testing period for our Windows Home Server code name “Vail” product, we have received feedback from partners and customers about how they use storage today and how they plan to use it moving forward. Today large hard drives of over 1TB are reasonably priced, and freely available. We are also seeing further expansion of hard drive sizes at a fast rate, where 2Tb drives and more are becoming easy accessible to small businesses. Since customers looking to buy Windows Home Server solutons from OEM's will now have the ability to include larger drives, this will reduce the need for Drive Extender functionality.

When weighing up the future direction storage in the consumer and SMB market, the team felt the Drive Extender technology was not meeting our customer needs. Therefore, moving forward we have decided to remove the Drive Extender technology from Windows Home Server Code Name “Vail” (and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials) which are currently in beta.

While this removes the integrated ability for storage pooling of multiple hard drives and automated data duplication, we are continuing to work closely with our OEM partners to implement storage management and protection solutions, as well as other software solutions. This will provide customers greater choice as well as a seamless experience that will meet their storage needs. Customers will also have access to the in-built storage solutions Windows Server 2008 R2 provides for data protection. We are also still delivering core features such as automated Server and PC backup, easy sharing of folders and files, Remote Web Access and simplified management without any expected changes.

Target product availability is still H1 2011, and we expect to deliver a new beta without drive extender for Windows Home Server Code Name “Vail” early in the New Year.


:source: WHS Team Blog
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