Home System Backup in a Windows World

Microsoft unveiled Windows Home Server at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. Based on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, the software connects multiple PCs and can store, manage, back up and protect digital content. The company said the OEM version will be available in the fall.

Home integrators can use Windows Home Server to offer a straightforward backup solution to small and home-based businesses. While vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu-Siemens and Gateway have all announced plans to ship products with Windows Home Server pre-installed later in the year, system builders can turn any machine into a server, provided it meets the minimum requirements. Windows Home Server's remote access capabilities also allow the backups to be accessed and monitored from off-site.

For this TechBuilder recipe, the Channel Test Center used Windows Home Server to backup machines on a Windows network. The test network, designed to resemble a small or home-based business, consisted of two desktops and two laptops in addition to the machine designated as the server. Engineers installed the RTM version of the Windows Home Server.

1. Prepare the Environment: Microsoft has positioned Windows Home Server for the home market, and the software's minimum requirements reflect that. For the home server, engineers repurposed a white box with 512 Mbytes of memory, 120 Gbytes on an internal hard drive, a 1-GHz Intel Pentium 3 processor, a DVD drive and a 10/100 Ethernet port. Windows Home Server requires a minimum of 70 Gbytes of hard drive space but recommends 300 Gbytes on at least two drives to support data mirroring. A broadband Internet connection is required.

Windows Home Server requires the server to be connected directly to a firewall/router; it does not support wireless for the server. Client machines can access the server wirelessly without a problem, but the server itself must be connected on a wired network. The server should also obtain its IP address from the firewall/router device. And finally, the router must support the UPnP protocol so that Windows Home Server can configure the router to allow remote access capabilities.

Prior to installation, all external drives must be disconnected. External SCSI, USB, and FireWire drives can be added to the server's storage pool afterwards. Windows Home Server also supports USB 2.0.

2. Installing the Server: Insert the Windows Home Server installation DVD into the DVD tray on the machine designated as the home server. Installation is simple and straightforward, but a little slow. After a quick scan to ensure that hardware components meet minimum requirements, the installer detects and lists all the internal hard drives. Missing internal drives can be added by clicking on "Load Drivers" and installing the files.

Once all the drives in the machine have been detected, installation can proceed. After selecting the "New Installation" type and choosing the appropriate regional and keyboard settings, the installer will request the product key and a name to assign to the server. The name should not exceed 15 characters and can contain only letters, numbers and hyphens. No periods, underscores, or special characters can be used.

The installer is designed to ensure that the not-so-tech-savvy user understands that all data on the drives will be deleted. Once the server name is assigned, the installer lists all the detected drives in the system and offers a checkbox stating, "I acknowledge that all data on these drives will be lost." A modal dialog box also confirms the action before the installation finally begins.

Installation on the test machine took about an hour and a half. After the main software installation, some updates were installed, which required the machine to frequently reboot. Since no user input was required, engineers stepped away at this point to grab a sandwich.

After the final reboot, a dialog box prompts for a server password. To ensure strong security, the password is case sensitive, must be at least seven characters long and must contain at least three of the following: uppercase characters, lowercase characters, numbers or symbols. After the password is created, the installation software configures Automatic Windows Updates, Customer Experience Improvement Program and Windows Error Reporting. Engineers turned on Automatic Windows Updates to keep the system up-to-date, but turned off the other two features to prevent the system from dialing back to Microsoft. With the system installed, the desktop is very bare. There are two shortcuts on the desktop: one for the Windows Home Server Console and to access shared folders. A browser window automatically opens, warning that the tools on the desktop can potentially "break" Windows Home Server. The message helpfully suggests performing all administrative tasks from a different computer and not directly on the desktop. Since the server is intended to run headless, engineers logged off the machine but kept the server running, and disconnected the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

3. Setting up the client: Engineers next turned their attention to the client application. Windows Home Server ships with a Windows Home Server Connector CD. Each machine on the home network that will access the Windows Home Server needs to have this client software installed. Only Windows Vista and Windows XP are supported at this time.

The installation software starts a wizard to find the server on the network. Once found, the application prompts for the server password before installing the client console. As part of the installation, a backup job for the machine is automatically created and inserted into the Windows Home Server. This CD should be run on every single computer in the network that will be making backups to the server and accessing the shared files.

When completed, there is a shortcut on the desktop to access shared files on the server, Windows Home Server Console is in the Start menu, and a Windows Home Server icon is in the system tray.

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