Complete newbie here, so apologies if this is a FAQ or even a RTFM.

Brand new HP EX490 plugged in, and seemed to be installing ok, I logged on, and then a window appeared labelled "Retrieving HP MediaSmart Client Update" and there has been no progress for some hours now. Is this normal?

I can log on by RDP and it looks like its working.
the "network health" icon is red - critical.

Hi JemHayward welcome to the forums!

Client updates do not take very long and since you mention you have a Red Console Icon. I suggest you logon the console and from there you can check for the reason why your Console Icon is RED. Not everything that turns that red is critical sometimes its red to inform you that WHS thinks something is wrong with a client and most commonly its when WHS thinks a client is not upto date with thier securty software as on example. Sometimes you close them out and the Icon turns Green again.

If your having trouble figuring it out just post what the reason for the icon being red it and maybe we can help you sort it out.

_________________
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

Problem was that I couldn't log on to the console, as it was stuck on the update screen. I think that I fixed it by logging in direct by RDP and ran the console on the machine. This seemed to break the dam and I've now found the console. It hadn't applied the update as far as I can tell, but I'm now updating other stuff so we're making progress... Icon now green.

Arrgh... this is proving a nightmare... it now tells me my network is critical, and I must download the latest client connector software from the server, uninstall and re-install on the client. It didn't tell me how, but I found the secret - port 55000 - downloaded it. Re installed on the client PC, ran it, connected, and it tells me its still incompatible. Where do I go now?

I had exactly this problem when I installed my EX495, it told me my client software was out of date, I uninstalled the old one, installed the new one off the server, and still kept getting the error. I eventually decided to install the new one again, then reboot both the server and client PC, then have a beer. The problem went away after that. The beer may or may not have been important in that process, I'm not sure.

Note that you should give the server a generous "window" to fully reboot before trying to connect again with the client connector, if I try to connect less than 20 or so minutes after mine reboots the console is all messed up.

The connector software on your server should be the latest version available. Anytime I have upgraded the connector software I just install it from the server and it removes the old connector software before installing the new. There should be no need to reboot the server for the software to work.

_________________
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 encountered the same problems; it will take 24 hours before an error pops up, advising me to check my network connection. I tried several times, it was a repaired WHS x86 installation.

Because it was hard to find a download link, I thought to make a mirror for all to download when needed, here: https://webdav.stackstorage.com/index.p ... hLgg9zaeE6

I solved my download problem by just copying the setup from above to my local PC. When I ran setup for the client tool there, there were no problems. All is working well now.

Good luck

Devnullius