The Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 finally patches data corruption issue that was plaguing so many Home Server users for a long time. Computers running Windows Vista 64-bit are supported now after installing the Power Pack which was another point of criticism.

Add to that the ability to backup folder shares, improvements to remote access, performance gains and more efficient power consumption and you got a must have pack for Windows Home Server.

Users who want to read up on it can point their browser to the Knowledge Base article. (via Neowin) Everyone else can head straight to the download page to download the surprisingly (22 Megabytes, that’s half the six word dictionary update from a few days ago) small Power Pack.

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The issue is caused by security changed to the Terminal Service ActiveX control in Internet Explorer which is now disabled by default. Thankfully a workaround was posted already, here are the steps to fix the problem and enable Windows Home Server Remote Access again.

Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons to enable the Terminal Services ActiveX control again. If you see the Terminal Services control and are able to enable it you are done. If you cannot see it or cannot enable it you need to delete two keys in the Windows Registry instead which will also enable the Terminal Services ActiveX control again.

HKCU \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Ext \Settings \{7390f3d8-0439-4c05-91e3-cf5cb290c3d0}
HKCU\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Ext\ Settings\ {4eb89ff4-7f78-4a0f-8b8d-2bf02e94e4b2)

Once you have deleted those two keys the activeX control should be enabled again in Internet Explorer.

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Microsoft is currently trying to reproduce the error to program a fix that gets rid of this problem. Users have reported that the they experienced corrupted files using the following programs: Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money 2007, SyncToy 2.0 Beta but also customers who reported problems with non Microsoft products such as Quicken or Bittorrent applications.

The investigating team found three possible issues that might cause the corrupted files. They are the following:

• A home server is under an extreme load. For example, lots of files are being copied to the home server.
• At the same time, a user is editing files that are already saved in a shared folder on the home server.
• The program that the user is using to edit these files is one of the programs that are listed in this article.

No real fix has been published yet which means that you should take precautions that those three issues will not corrupt your files. A workaround would be to save the files on your normal system first and then move them to the Home Server. That is, if I understood the problem correctly.

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Some of the key features are simplicity of use, backup capabilities, a single store pool that works without drive letters and content that can be shared with other computers and devices including the Xbox. This can be useful but I personally don’t need a Home Server to do most of these things.

But that is me and others might think different. A good way to see if Windows Home Server is useful for you would be to order a 120 day fully functional trial version from Microsoft. The only catch is that you have to pay money for it. Europeans pay around €7 which means that users from the United States will probably pay $10 for the package that will be send to your location.

It’s not a bad bargain especially if you think this could be useful for you. One DVD and two CDs will be shipped actually:

Windows Home Server Installation DVD
Windows Home Server Connector CD
Home Computer Restore CD

The requirements for installing Windows Home Server are:

Computer with 1 GHz Pentium III (or equivalent) or faster processor
512 MB of RAM or more
70 GB or larger ATA, SATA, or SCSI hard drive as the primary hard drive and any number of additional hard drives of any size
DVD drive—your home server must be capable of booting from this drive
VGA or higher-resolution monitor for software installation
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device (needed only during initial home server software installation)
100 Mbps or faster Ethernet network interface card

And finally the requirements to run it:

Internet broadband router/firewall device with a 100 Mbps or faster wired Ethernet connection for your home server
Windows Home Server assumes that your home computers get their IP address from the router/firewall device on your home network
Broadband connection (fees may apply)

What I like is the option to schedule regular backups from all computers connected to the network. All of this can be done with each computer manually as well but it sure eases the burden to do all of this from one central computer.

The more difficulty task is to find the hardware to run the homeserver. You could use an old computer that meets the requirements for this, but if you do not have an old one you might have to buy one. Several manufacturers already announced home servers especially for Windows Home server.

Read More:

Windows Home Server 120 days trial

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