We Got Served

The Goal

Jim Clark recently put together an excellent series of articles describing some of the steps that Microsoft could take to educate the Average Joe about Windows Media Center and expand the market for WMC. Obviously, those of us spending our days perusing sites like We Got Served would not be the target of such an effort, but our lives are full of these Average Joes. Over the next several weeks I am going to be sharing my experiences as I essentially build a network from the ground up, tailored to implementing Windows Home Server and Windows Media Center together.

My ultimate goal in sharing my experiences with you is to provide insight into how you can maximize Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server in an environment of novice users. There should be points of interest along the way for users of all backgrounds though. Being a bit of nerd, I will be building or retrofitting all of the systems myself and sharing tips on what kind of hardware to select, but will also be providing tips on what to look for in retail systems for those WGS readers not interested in building their own systems. I will be detailing some of the specific software and hardware accessories that I recommend for maximizing ease-of-use and family life integration. I will also be extensively exploring how to use WMC in a home theater PC, or HTPC, and the pros and cons of dedicating a PC to the living room versus using Media Center Extenders throughout the house. Finally, I will be discussing some of the considerations that go into using Windows Media Center in a multi-PC environment and how to integrate multiple WMC machines, extenders, and WHS in a cohesive way that will remain transparent and user-friendly for even the least savvy of computer users.

The Ad-hoc Network

The issues involved in deploying Windows Media Center for novice users are nothing new for me, but I want to give some background into why I am going to explore this topic with you, the reader, through the lens of an entire network deployment. After all, I do not expect that most readers will be interested in undertaking quite such an extensive action simply to roll out WMC or WHS. However, if the following situation sounds familiar, you might just change your mind.

My family’s first Media Center PC was an HTPC that I put together shortly after MCE 2005 became available. It was such a success that it quickly supplanted our cable company’s DVR. This HTPC remained the centerpiece of our entertainment center for more than a year. It wasn’t always an easy arrangement. Being the only Media Center system in the house, it was also my experimental testing grounds for new plug-ins, registry hacks, and all around tech tinkering. While I learned a lot from this experimentation, the resulting instabilities, incompatibilities, and the occasional borked system tried my wife’s patience.

After more than a year of this arrangement, our home network went through an unparalleled round of expansion. We went from having two PCs, the family PC and the HTPC, to having four PCs, an Xbox 360, a laptop, and a NAS over the course of a year. PCs got shuffled from room to room as I attempted to give each family member their own PC, began migrating to Windows Vista, and switched to using the Media Center Extender in the Xbox 360 instead of dedicating a PC for use as an HTPC. The result of all this movement has been a situation that I am sure many WGS readers have encountered at one point or another: a disorganized mess of a network with inconsistent network setups, out of synch OS installations, and no coherent backup and monitoring strategy.

The plan is to reboot the network. I will start with the networking equipment. My router is failing and I want to make the jump to gigabit to take advantage of the Cat 6 cable I ran through the house a couple of years ago. It is overkill, but that never stopped me before. Next up comes the WHS machine to replace the NAS. I have been meaning to build a WHS since it came out, but have found one reason or another to put it off. Joining the team here at WGS and the recent release of Power Pack 1 means I have no excuses left. Tune in next time to learn more about how I went about building this server, prepped the new network, and prepared the existing machines for the new network.