Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 is a free version of Windows Server 2012 that only supports the Hyper-V role. You can use this to install on bare metal to give you a hyper visor that can support virtualisation. In this article I will be looking at how you prepare an image and configuration file (autounattend.xml) to target a server for a hands off installation.

Resources you will need

• Hyper-V Server 2012 ISO - Click on Free Download in the banner on http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/hyper-v-server/
• The Microsoft USB/DVD download tool (you may have to Bing! it if you can’t access this region of the store) - http://emea.microsoftstore.com/UK/en-GB/Service-Centre/Windows-7-USB-DVD-Download-Tool
• The Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) (I have Windows 8 so Bing! the version you need) - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30652

Download the ISO, install the DVD tool but when you come to install the ADK only install the Deployment Tools: You will need to run the Windows System Image Manager: First mount the ISO on a local drive or open it in another program to extract the install.wim file from the sources folder.  Save this file to your local hard disk.  From the File Menu select New Answer File… then choose Yes to Open a new Windows Image: Select the Windows install.wim Image that you copied from the Sources folder earlier: Then select yes to create the catalogue file.  This will take a few minutes.  At this point you could use the USB/DVD download tool to create your bootable USB drive. A 2GB USB Drive will do fine for this. When the creation of the catalogue file has completed you will need to add a number of configuration options from the Windows Image section in the bottom left of the Windows System Image Manager window to the Answer File.  You do this by opening the Components Tree and right-clicking on a Component with the mouse and selecting the appropriate phase to add it to.  You will then see the Answer File populate with the Configuration Option that you can edit later.  I will details the Configuration Options you need to add to your answer file to enable an unattended install of Windows Hyper-V Server 2012. Add the following to 1 windowsPE:

It’s not so easy to find, but Microsoft has released the Linux Integration Services ISO for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. It also supports older instances of Hyper-V.

Download the ISO

Features

• Driver support: Linux Integration Services supports the network controller and the IDE and SCSI storage controllers that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.

• Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices now take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.

  [Read More]

This is just a quick post to say that iCloud works fine on Windows Home Server 2011. Though Apple don’t list Windows Server 2008 R2 or WHS2011 as a compatible product I’ve installed iCloud without any issues on my Windows Home Server and it’s been happily downloading photos sent by an iPhone 4 over the past week.

Simply logon to your Windows Home Server via RDP and go to http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1455 and download the iCloud Control Panel for Windows.  Install the application as normal but due to the fact it registers a new component with the Windows control panel you will need to reboot before you can access the system control panel.  Don’t install iCloud unless you can reboot right away or live without the control panel until your server is rebooted.

For a good year and half now my EX490 has served me well as the only server in my household.  It takes care of all essentials activities such as media sharing and backup.  It’s the hub of my digital archives, the brain in the distributed backup solution and with VMware it’s my own little cloud.  I’ve been thinking of upgrading to Windows Home Server 2011 for a while and I wanted to run my old WHSv1 in a VM to keep some of my old backups accessible.  My major concern was still being able to have a responsive server along the way.  I’m lucky in that in the past I’ve found a Q8400S and 4GB for relatively low costs and recently I acquired a Crucial C300 256GB SSD and a Kingston Storage Bay Adapter (SNA-DC/35) 

  If I had to choose what were the most important files on my Home Server then I would instantly say it’s our photos.  Gone are the days of film and processing but part of the process of backing up is getting these files onto our servers.  In the past I’ve manually connected the camera to the server and uploaded them to the server after which copies are made to online backup services such as Wuala.

Introduction

This article will cover installing VMWare Virtual Server 2.0 on Windows Home Server and setting up guest operating systems.  Part 1 covered the steps in upgrading the hardware in an HP MediaSmart Server EX490 to deal with virtualisation.

You will need a copy of VMWare Server 2.0.2, a License Key (given for free after a no-fee registration with VMWare.com) and Remote Desktop Access to you Windows Home Server.

Got VMWare?

In the last paragraphs of the previous article on turning your HP MSS EX49x into a Virtual Server I said it was a good idea to get hold of VMWare Server 2.0.  You can download it by following this link and going through the download steps or by navigating the huge menus at VMWare.com.  You will have to register with VMWare but you get the option to opt out of emails if you won’t be interested in the odd email about Virtualisation and Cloud Computing.  The download is 507MB and I advise you go through VMWare’s Download Manager.  The version you need to get is VMWare Server 2.0.2 (10/26/2009) – it’s the first version under the Binaries heading, be careful not to download the Linux version or the API instead.  On this same page is the only time you will be given the licensing information for VMWare Server.  I suggest saving this page or making a copy of the License Key somewhere safe – keys are provided for both Linux and Windows versions.  As always I recommend you use a Client PC to do the actual download and move the file to your Windows Home Server Software Share once you have virus scanned the executable.

Introduction

This article is based around upgrading the hardware in an HP MediaSmart Server EX490.  Later articles will cover installing VMWare Virtual Server 2.0 and guest operating systems.

Say What?

There are a lot of articles and posts on the internet showing you how to run Windows Home Server in a virtual environment.  I did consider turning my EX490 into a Virtual Server using VMWare ESXi (the enterprise Virtualisation solution) but because I would severely lose out on important storage characteristics with regard to the ability of hot swapping and expanding the virtual disk datastore I decided against it.  Long before ESX (and ESXi) though was Virtual Server from VMWare supporting a more traditional approach of an application layer on top of the operating system – as opposed to installing a Hypervisor on top of bare metal (the machine itself with no underlying operating system).  Anyway this is not a lesson of which is best or why use virtualisation, I assume if you are reading this then you are familiar with Wikipedia for definitions and are interested in taking advantage of your ‘always on’ home server.

First select to Boot from CD-ROM – if you have a blank hard disk then most systems will automatically boot from CD-ROM if not you will have to tell you computer to boot from a different source by pressing a certain key at boot time to bring up a Boot Menu.  You will need to refer to your motherboard manual , keys such as F10, F2 might work – look carefully at the screen when your PC first switches on for clues as to what key to press.  It is also possible to go into setup and select which source to boot from also.

Wuala (http://www.wuala.com/) is an online storage platform from Lacie.  It differs from many other platforms because you can trade storage with other users.  That is you can allocate a certain amount of storage that can safely and securely be used by other users and in return get access to storage provided by other users. 

From the Wuala Website they describe their product as:

… innovative

Wuala is based on unique and innovative technology. In stark contrast to other online storage services, Wuala can harness idle resources and store files redundantly in its growing grid network.

http://www.mswhs.com/ http://www.wegotserved.com/ http://www.homeserverland.com/ http://homeservershow.com/ Feel free to add comments with other good sites: That is they are updated on a daily basis. They have a knowledgeable user base. They are in the English Language. They are recognised by MS - i.e. contributors are MVPs etc.