I installed Vail on my MSS EX470 Thursday evening following Alex's and Nigel's guides. My MSS EX 470 was upgraded a long time ago with a dual core 3800 CPU and 2GB of RAM, so there was no problem with meeting the minimum specs for Vail. I purchased a new 160GB WD Caviar Blue HDD for the system drive and re-used 3 old 1.5TB drives for the storage pool. I pulled all of the drives from the 3.0 HP install and labled the disks for re-install, so I can switch between Vail and WHS if I want or need to. I did the install headless with only a USB keyboard attached and, of course, a USB drive with the install ISO. The install proceeded without any problems. A big thank you to Alex and Nigel for the guides. It was quite difficult though, to figure out when the install had completed. I'm so used to relying on the lights to determine what's going on with the MSS, but that shows not happening with Vail on the MSS. The health light just blinks blue and there are no drive lights I tried several times to RDP to the server after the light started blinking blue, only to see the MSS reboot. I'm not exactly sure just how long it actually took to install, because I finally just let it sit for a couple of hours before trying again to connect.

I did not want to install the connector immediatly on any of my PCs, so I RDP'd to the Vail server from my PC. The first thing I did was add the 3 old 1.5TB drives to the storage pool. I really like the new ability to label the drives, but I did learn that in order to identify the drives correctly, I needed to add them one at a time. I first added all three, but when it came time to label them, I got it wrong. I wanted to label them MSS 1, 2 & 3 corresponding to the drive tray in the MSS. So, I removed the drives and re-added them one at a time.

Next item was to copy a couple of blu-ray movies and several music folders to the Vail server for testing. This proved to be quite the challenge. Even though I could RDP to the Vail server from my PC, I could not copy and paste files to the Vail server's shares. I was getting a permissions error. I could not get Andromeda to see the Vail server at all. I could not add the Vail server to my existing workgoup. It appears that for now, the workgroup name in Vail is locked to Workgroup. The Vail Server was showing up in my Network places on my Windows 7 PC only, but I could not access the shares. I then added the PC and Andromeda as users to the Vail server with full access, but that didn't solve the problem either. I then set up a homegroup and added the Windows 7 PC and the Vail server. Immediately after setting up the homegroup, I had full access to the Vail server's shares. Using my Windows 7 PC's desktop, I could copy and paste files between Andromeda and the Vail server. But, I still couldn't copy and paste files directly from Andromeda to the Vail Server. I finally had to map network drives in Andromeda to the Vail server.

The next order of business was to install myiHome on the Vail server to see if I could stream blu-ray m2ts files from the Vail server to my PCH A-110. I installed the 64 bit version of myiHome on the Vail server and set up the video, music and photo directories. The Vail server myiHome option appears on the PCH, but I can't open the program. I set up an SMB share from the PCH to the Vail server and can play the files (video and music), via SMB, but no go on the myiHome http option yet. I'm wondering if the PCH A-110 is compatible with the 64 bit version of myiHome? I'm going to have to keep working on this and I'll eventually figure it out, I hope.

Last night I decided to connect my laptop to the Vail server, which again proved to be quite the challenge. The first error I got was that the XP pro OS wasn't compatible with the connector. I've never upgraded the laptop to Service Pack 3 and the Vail connector requires any XP computer to be at SP3. So I had to install SP3 on the laptop first. The reason I'd never upgraded the OS to SP3 was every time I tried to install it on the laptop, the laptop would freeze about 1/2 way through the install. I started the download and install of SP3. Four hours later, the laptop was frozen again, but this time, the install was almost complete. I had to do a hard shut down and re-start the machine. When it re-started, it indicated that SP3 was installed, but there were 44 updates that needed to be installed. I installed all the updates, then proceeded to try again to install the Vail connector. I was prompted to uninstall the WHS connector, which I did. After uninstalling the WHS connector, the Vail connector installed without any problems. I haven't re-installed the WHS connector yet.

I let the Vail server backup the laptop over night. This morning I RDP'd to the Vail server from my PC and tried to open the backup to see the files and folders. I promptly got the following error:

"The requested operation can not be performed. The operation is an administrative task that can only be run from a client computer that is joined to the network. To run this task, open the Dashboard from a client computer that is joined to the network."

This makes no sense. I should be able to open a backup and retrieve files from a RDP session from a non connected computer. If the laptop had died overnight after the backup completed, there would be no way to recover any files without first restoring the laptop. When I tried to open the files and folders from the dashboard on the laptop, it acted like and said it was copying the selected folder to the laptop. This is very odd. I cancelled the operation, because I didn't want to copy any files. I just wanted to see them to see if I could do a single file restore. Maybe I can, and I'm just not fully understanding how it works yet, but it's quite different than WHS single file restore.

That's my story for now. So far, despite the few issues I've had, and knowing that this version is an early beta, I like Vail. I'm not real concerned with the new Drive Extender and the non NTFS volume issue. The whole operation seems to be more robust than WHS v1. However, Vail still has quite a ways to go to be a finished product.

Despite the issues with your laptop it sounds like you were able to install Vail fairly painlessly. Unfortunately, I haven't been succesful trying to install Vail on my 470. The first time I tried it I let it go all night and the next morning the server was still on but I was not able to ping, RDP, or http to the server. I know it got part of the way through the installation because when I remove the drive and put it in my desktop, I see several folders (Windows, Users, Program Files, etc). Is there a log file somewhere that I can see where it is hanging up?

This latest try, after some time (don't know exactly) I found the server shut down. But whenever I try to boot it up, it just shuts down after about 15 seconds. The same folders existed this time as before, but I'm not sure what is different that is causing the server to shutdown.

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HP EX470 w/ Neo X2 6650e, 2GB, modified bios

@ cavediver,

I realize the 3800+ is a stable processor but with not being able to control the fans is your EX470 stable in that its not shutting down for high temps on the processor. I really wanted to install VAIL on my EX470 with a BE2300 just to get the better perfomance. Right now I have it running on a EX470 with the stock processor and while its running ok its slow at the beginning when the dashboard loads up but after that everything seems to be fine. On my end I did go into the BIOS of my EX470 and set it to shut down the server if it hit 60c. The default in the BIOS has this disabled but I want to make certain that it would shut off if the CPU temp were to climb for some reason. Alex did tell me not to worry that the EX470 would shut itself down if the temp climbed but I wanted to make sure so I made the change in the BIOS.

Since I have a video connection on my EX470 I can use VAIL more directly. After reading your post about accessing the backups I attempted to open up a backup of the only client that I am currently testing for backup and got the same error and yet I am logged on as the Administrator so its weird I can not access the files in the client backup rendering this function absolutely useless.


Having the Snipping tool available in VAIL is very nice. Its my hope that this will not be an issue when VAIL is released. I like having the ability to access files from client backups. I have backups of computers I have sent to my son and fiance so if they need something they lost I can get it for them and place it in their Personal folders so they can download them off my server. So for now this is only possible with WHS-1 not in vail.

I have also placed some movies in the video directory to see if I can view them using remote access but it just seems to take forever for them to process or its processing something just do not know what yet. I have not attempted to try to access them yet with my WD TV Live but will get to it today or tomorrow.

Now I do have VAIL joined to my home group but when I try to save files from Vail to my WIN 7 client it says I do not have access so I have to check the shares on that client but I believe its set to share pictures but its not doing it. I can access all my servers from my Win7 Client no problem at all but I have yet to verify if all my servers can directly exchange files between them as I generally do this with a client so I have never had the want, need or desire to do so but it will be interesting to be able to do that and see if I can send files that way without a client intervention.

I will post this on Microsoft Connect and hope you do the same because the more things like this are posted the better off we are that Microsoft will correct it if its not currently on their ever growing list of things to correct.

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Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

cavediver,
Do you have speed stepping on the amd processors or are they running full bore all the time. This is the prroblem I ran into with SuperwhsII. The microsoft drivers seem to only handle enhanced powernow and not the older speed stepping and the are no amd drivers for windows 2008. This is a non-starter for me unless I can figure a way around it.

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HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

I'm not sure, but I think it's enabled since the cpu speed would fluctuate under WHS. I could see the voltages and temps fluctuating under the hardware settings tab in WHS. I haven't done anything to the MSS bios except update it to recognize the dual core cpu. I'll have to load Speedfan on the Vail server to see what's going on now, but the Vail server has been runnning full time since Thursday evening.

I submitted a Connect Bug Report on the inability to open the Backup via RDP issue per the request of MS. The Bug report can be found here. The Bug ID is 556321. Go vote it up. We need the ability to restore single files or folders via RDP from a non connected computer.

This is what a MS rep had to say on the MS forum in response to my question.

"Yes, we do know about this feature (or rather the lack of it), but unfortunately did not make it. It is also currently not planned to be in future releases.

Couple of comments though. If your laptop died you should be able to do a full system restore of that from your backups. If the laptop is the only client you have then this particular problem is definitely a pain. The second comment I have is, although RDP is a nice test scenario and interesting for advanced users, Vail is intended to be a headless server accessed only from the dashboard running on a client.

As I mentioned we do know about this potential gap, and wanted to get this feature in, but given our perinneal resource/time constraints and the comments stated above it was cut.

You should definitely bug it and let people vote on it.

Thanks

-Bodhi


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bodhi Deb - MSFT"

I've never had a temp problem on the MSS since I installed the 3800 CPU.


See my post above this one and the response from MS. What snipping tool are you referring to?


I already posted a bug report. See my post above for the link and ID number. You can vote on it there.

This Snipping tool to capture pics of your screen the same one in Win7.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

I would suggest you wipe everything clean and start over.

Thanks for sharing your experience and impressions, cavediver, I'm glad the guides served you well. It does take awhile for the server to finish installing, the best way to tell in my opinion is to keep trying to access the http://servername/connect page until it finally comes up. But yes, after you hear that first reboot, walk away for an hour or so.

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

One other thing I did right away before I copied any data to the Vail server was to remove the system drive from the storage pool. The process acted just like a regular drive removal and took a few minutes to remove ~15 GB of data that was placed there during installation. I really like this feature.

I found the source of the problem with myiHome. It's Windows Firewall. When I disable Windows Firewall, the PCH can access and play files via myiHome installed on Vailserver. I tried setting up rules for incoming connections from the PCH lan ip address and outgoing connections for myiHome application and myiHome server as well as a certificate rule to not check for a certificate from the PCH, but with Windows Firewall turned on, the PCH cannot access the myiHome server on the Vailserver. I'm not familiar at all with Windows Firewall in Server 2008 R2, so any suggestions on configuration will be most appreciated.

I got myiHome working by configuring the private profile in Windows Firewall to allow all incoming programs, which I'm not sure is the best configuration, but for now will allow me to test Vail as a streaming server. Windows Firewall in Server 2008 R2 is way too complicated for the average home user and I can see a lot of problems in the future with people trying to connect their media devices to Vail due to the very strict default Windows Firewall settings and the complicated rules and permissions settings to get computers, devices and programs to work and play nice with each other. The regular UPNP Windows media sharing stuff works fine. It's the non Windows media sharing devices and programs that I think are going to be problematic.