MS Windows Home Server

The latest schedule regarding release dates for Power Pack 1 (PP1), is as follows:

• August 4th – German, Spanish and French editions will all be available via the Microsoft Download Center.
• August 12th or August 26th – All versions of Power Pack 1 will be available to download directly via Windows Update/Microsoft Update.
• By September, everyone purchasing the OEM edition of Windows Home Server for self-built systems will find Power Pack 1 included in their build of Windows Home Server. This is also known as a “Media Refresh”.

Ditch your CD rack, install a server is the title of an article on PC World with more facts and figures from the latest Forrester report with Windows Home Server expected to rule the home server market for the next five years, during which PC-based servers will be the dominant solution.

After our post yesterday regarding the performance issues after updating software on the HP MediaSmart Server’s, Brian Burch the Director of Marketing in HP’s Connected Entertainment group has been in contact with the following statement:

As you know HP released a software update for MediaSmart Server on July 21, following Microsoft’s release of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1. The HP software update provides support for 64-bit operating systems, plus two optional add-ins that a user may choose to install – McAfee Total Protection Service and PacketVideo PVConnect media server. The 64 bit upgrade prepares the MediaSmart Server for support of Vista 64-bit systems. Users do not need to enable this feature. It is an automatic update.

The PacketVideo Connect add-in provides advanced graphics such as photo thumbnails, in-menu browsing, and album art during remote access, as well as broader support for the more popular video, music and photo formats.  The McAfee anti-virus add-in will provide Server side anti-virus protection with free virus definitions for seven months. Both of these are add-ins will be automatically downloaded to the Add-In folder in the software folder on the HP MediaSmart Server. The user can add them if they choose just like any other add-in.

The McAfee Total Protection Service must index all of the files stored on the Server in order to provide the protection against a virus attack. The PacketVideo PVConnect will, upon installation, create a database of all the media files such as photos, music and videos on the Server. When these two services are installed together, the combined ‘first run’ indexing by McAfee and database creation by PacketVideo, can use the majority of the resources on the Server. This may result in slow response times from the Server until those activities have been completed. If the user has also installed other add-ins or software packages on the Server there may be an additional lag in response time. It has also been reported that the Windows Home Server Console can become unresponsive during this time.

As a result, we recommend that users install each update one at a time, independently. Users should first install Windows Home Server Power Pack 1, then PVConnect followed by McAfee.

Additionally, since the release of the HP MediaSmart Server software update, it has been discovered that PacketVideo no longer supports media streaming to a Sony Playstation 3.  This is an issue with PacketVideo, not with the MediaSmart Server. There are directions for opening the PV database and fixing the problem by inserting a space between “PLAYSTATION” and “3”.

The guys over in the We Got Served forums have got Media Center 2005 running on Windows Home Server.

Also of interest to you may be The Green Button’s Media Center 2005 on a Windows 2003 Server post which helped accomplish what they were doing.

Have you experienced a slow down to your HP MediaSmart Server after installing PP1 and the 2 HP downloads McAfee’s Total Protection Service and PacketVideo’s PVConnect Media Server?

A number of users have experienced slowdowns due to the PVConnect media indexing task, which runs after installation, compounded by McAfee’s on-access malware protection (per disk-read basis), which makes the disks in the server thrash non-stop. This brings the performance of the entire server down to a crawl and makes the console open extremely slow or completely disappear (crash) when clicking the add-in tabs.

So Why’s It Happening?

The minimum system requirements for the 2 add-ins are an Intel® Pentium® processor or compatible and 64MB RAM (512MB recommended for servers) for McAfee’s Total Protection Service and a Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or compatible (1.6ghz+) 512MB RAM for the PacketVideo’s PVConnect Media Server software. Now after a reboot and at rest, the HP MediaSmart Server has only about 200MB of physical memory available. Installing the add-ins, thus caused the mentioned problems due to lack of sufficient memory.

The Solution

Leave the PVConnect add-in to do its thing and complete its indexing of all your media files, but beware, this has been known to take more than 24 hours to complete and during that time the console can become completely unusable. Meaning, if you did want to uninstall the add-ins during that time you would have to remote desktop onto the server, and launch the console from there to get access to the Settings page to remove PVConnect and McAfee, followed by a reboot to return the server to a usable state.

You could also either uninstall both add-ins, or just McAfee itself, which some users are reporting cures the problem. If you would rather keep them both, then the only real solution is to install more RAM and/or tweak the virtual memory settings on the server.

More information is available from Rafaels Within Windows website.

MediaSmarthome.com has a great guide on protecting your HP MediaSmart Server and home network from viruses and malicious software. The 4 page guide shows you how to secure your wireless network, and tells us about firewall protection and antivirus software. File and folder permissions, user accounts and sharing folders and media are also discussed.

Keeping your home computer stuff safe.