Windows Home Server: administering remotely
David Flynn28 April 2007, 11:20 AM
Part 4 of GALLERY: Windows Home Server beta 2
In addition to a DVD containing the OS you get a CD for loading the Windows Home Server Connector software onto client PCs. While admins can log into the server via the Windows Home Server Console from any client, end-users see only a desktop shortcut to the server's shared folders and a system tray icon, both of which are created when they run the Windows Home Server Connector utility on their Windows XP and Vista machines.
 Making the connection: XP and Vista users access their folders via the supplied Windows Home Server Connector software |
 Serve yourself: a desktop icon allows Windows users to access all shared folders on the server, along with their own personal folder under the Users directory |
 Status symbol: a system tray icon lets Windows XP and Vista users monitor their server connection, open shared folders and launch a backup the server |
The tray icon indicates server status. A green icon with a tick means the network is active and all's well; amber with exclamation mark means 'Warning, Will Robinson!'; blue means a backup is in progress, while a transparent icon indicates there's no connection to the server. The icon's pop-up menu can open the shared folders, launch the admin console or manually run a backup to the server.
 Set your content free: the Media Library Sharing feature lets other PCs and Windows Media Connect devices (including the Xbox 360) access music, videos and photos on the server's shared folders |
No Mac or Linux client software is supplied so Macolytes and Penguinistas must manually access the server, which presents itself as an SMB/CIF shared volume. We connected a Mac to our server through the My Network > Server route but as all the folders exist at the same directory level (rather than have a 'public folders' directory sitting above the rest), we had to open and authenticate each folder individually rather than log on once and be able to browse all the folders at will. Happily our test notebook gracefully reinstated the network connections when it awoke from sleep and kept the passwords in its keychain to provide immediate access.
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