We Got Served

If you’ve been an active part of the Windows Home Server community, I’m sure you’ve already heard that the Power Pack 1 Beta has been released and you’re anxious to try it out!  Among a list of things that have been fixed, tweaked and optimized is that nasty data corruption bug.  But that isn’t just it.  So first, let’s go over exactly what has been improved in Power Pack 1 and see why people are so eager to test it out!

Head over to the Microsoft Connect website to download and read the Beta release documentation for yourself. All of the following information is in that document, plus a bit more.

Server Storage and Shared Folder Enhancements

• The data corruption bug has been “addressed.”  At this point we aren’t going to say fixed.  That is one of the main focuses of this beta, as the only way to really verify this is to test it on a wide variation of systems.
• Long file paths are now supported on the Windows Home Server shared folders
• The Drive Extender functionality has been tweaked.  It will no longer constantly report that the system is balancing, and has been optimized for performance and runs when the following conditions occur:
  1. Every hour.
  2. When the Drive Extender Migrator service starts up - namely when you computer is first turned on.
  3. When a shared folder is added or removed using the Windows Home Server Console’s Shared Folders tab.
  4. When duplication on a shared folder is turned on or off.
  5. When a hard drive is added to Server Storage using the Windows Home Server Console.

  Furthermore, the console will only report the last time the serer was balanced, rather than when it is balancing.

• Overall performance improvements:
  1. The Drive Extender Migrator will use non-cached memory when moving files across secondary drives. This should improve the performance of migration passes, and speed up hard drive removal.
  2. File copy performance to and from the Windows Home Server shared folders has been improved.
• Home Server proactively checks the health of all files stored in the shared folders during a migration pass.  If any issues are discovered, a yellow health notification will be sent containing a detailed conflict reason for each file. Files that remain open for more than 24 hours are reported with a conflict of “File is open” as the Migrator needs the files to be closed to allow duplication to occur.  Any other file conflicts other than “File is open” should be reported as a bug on Connect.
• Hard drive removal has been enhanced to list the files which Home Server was not able to move off the hard drive being removed.  The reason for the failure is also noted in a details page which appears ath the end of the hard drive removal wizard.
• With Power Pack 1, Windows Home Server proactively searches for orphan shadows on the Home Server hard drive and places them in “D:\folders\{1618D36B-F4E7-4360-B070-A32070519DC9}\”
• A new and improved storage size algorithm has been implemented for listing Server Storage.

There is a known issue of Home Server blue screening with a specific “THIRD_PARTY_FILE_SYSTEM_FAILURE (108)” error code.  This is a known issue and is encouraged to be reported.  Check out the documentation for more details about this, and what to do if it does crash.

Windows Home Server Connector Enhancements

• The Windows Home Server Connector can now e installed on home computers using Windows Vista x64 operating systems.
• Better guidance is provided when the home computer clock and the Home Server clock differ significantly during Connector installation.
• Functionality is added to detect that the version of the Windows Home Server software.  If there is a mismatch, users will be prompted to manually update the Windows Home Server Connector software on their home computers.  This release enables automatic updating of the Windows Home Server Connector software in the future.
• The Windows Home Server Connector tray icon should no longer cause a flickering issue when auto-hide task bar is enabled.
• If the Windows Home Server Connector software is installed using the new Power Pack 1 Connector CD, then the home computer will automatically have the latest version of the Windows Home Server Connector software.

Home Server Data Backup (New Feature)

• While adding a hard drive to the Windows Home Server, the user is now presented with an option to use the hard drive for backing up the server.  Once this option is selected, the Home Server will appear in the Computers & Backup - where a user can decide what information they want to store on this external hard drive.
• Functionality is provided to allow restoring shared folders from an external hard drive that was used for Windows Home Server Data Backup

Remote Access Enhancements

• When adding/editing a user in the Home Server Console, in addition to enabling remote access for that user, there is now a drop down list box that allows the Home Server administrator to specify whether the user will have ascces to the computers tab, the shared folders tab, or both in remote access.
• The Routers and Domain name configuration details dialogs in the Remote Access Settings Page have been reworked to include more descriptive status, and contextual help links for failed tests.
• A new “Views” drop-down list is added for the Shared Folders tab in remote access which allows the files in a shared folder to be displayed as either a list of files (”Details” view) or as thumbnails (”Icons” view). In “Icons” view, the majority of the picture files will be presented as thumbnails, and the rest of the non-picture files and folders will be displayed as large icons.
• File upload functionality has been improved for users of Internet Explorer 6 and 7:
  • Users can drag and drop multiple files directly into an upload area or select multiple files in the open file dialog for upload.
  • Upload progress reporting has been improved, with the addition of a progress bar and individual file upload status.
  • Ability to cancel the multiple upload has been added as well.
• Ability for large file uploads to complete before the remote session times out has been implemented.
• When you download multiple files, the users are now give the option to package the files in a self extracting executable (.exe) file in addition to being able to store them in a ZIP file.  Self extracting executable files should be used for downloading files with filenames that use non-ASCII characters (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean, et cetera).

Home Computer Backup Enhancements

• If the backup database on the home server has an inconsistency error, the user can now use the backup database repair wizard to correct this error.  The repair wizard can be launched either through the Backup page in Settings, or by clicking on the backup database inconsistency error notification.
• A new option has been added to the Windows Home Server Connector tray icon that allows the user to enable or disable the home computer from waking up for backup if it is in sleep or hibernation mode.
• Users can now run Backup Cleanup while the single file restore dialog is open.
• Changed the name of the excluded folder from “Media Center temporary files” to “Recorded TV”.
• Windows Vista SP1 was incorrectly reported as “Windows Server Longhorn” in the Computers & Backup tab.
• Home computers running any versions of Windows XP Media Center Edition (2004, 2005), will be displayed as “Windows XP Media Center Edition” in the Computer & Backup tab.
• The Home Computer Restore CD automatically downloads and runs the latest version of the computer restore software from the Home Server when a user chooses to restore a home computer.
• The previous two versions of the Home Computer Restore CD have been replaced by a new version (Dual Boot) to support a wider range of home computers.  The Power Pack 1 Home Computer Restore CD (what a mouthful) gives the user two options - one is recommended for use on home computers with less than 512MB of memory and the other option is recommended for use on home computers with 512MB or more of memory.

Media Sharing Enhancements

• Windows Media Player Playlists pointing to media files stored on a home server should now play correctly via Windows Media Connect when these playlists are copied over to a home server and shared out via media sharing.

Miscellaneous Enhancements

• Processor power management is enabled by default in Windows Home Server using the “Server Balanced Process Power and Performance” power scheme as the default setting.
• The Windows Home Server setup process will no longer report an issue with Windows Desktop Search service during the initial installation of a Home Server from the Windows Home Server Installation DVD.
• The Windows Home Server logo should now be correctly displayed during the initial setup of a new home server.

Installation and Updates

Just as a warning, make sure you completely update everything before installing Power Pack 1.  Also, if you have a pre-release of PP1, you will need to uninstall that manually before installing the public beta.  You will likely have to uninstall this beta before upgrading to the official release when the beta is over.

Summary

Well, that was a lot of info.  Now to boil this down to the important parts.  The corruption bug is nearing a complete fix and due to some of the work, many aspects of the Drive Extender have been optimized.  Not to mention, all that complaining about certain features have been address.  Microsoft has been listening to us.  They have tweaked pretty much every part of Windows Home Server to work better, run faster and do more of what we want in a Home Server.  They haven’t been twiddling their thumbs.  If anything, I’m sure their hands are raw, bloody messes because of all the hours they’ve logged working on Power Pack 1, the corruption bug and making it more user friendly, and easier for average people to figure out.

Also, I have intentionally skipped over and didn’t included any of the testing scenarios or how to back up your system.  I’m not going to cover that at this time, due to the complexity and the length of information. Stay tuned for a number of ways to prepare for testing PP1 Beta and what you should do to test it out!