Installing PP3 to your Windows Home Server

Have you installed PP3 yet?  It’s very simple but here is a small guide to help out a bit.

The prerequisites are as follows:

• You must have PP2 installed.
• You must remove any PP3 betas.

You install it by going to your WHS console and clicking settings.  In the General tab there is an “Update Now” button.  Click and wait.

MB sizes a little confused? 28 MB of 6.80 downloaded. Hmmm…..

There are other updates being installed as well. KB973686 and KB973687.  “Install this update to prevent applications from sending too many HTTP requests while a well-known Document Type Definition (DTD) is included.”

When you click Update now you don’t have to do anything until you see the Reboot button.  After your WHS is rebooted your client PC’s should see a RED WHS tray icon.

If you don’t see the balloon message pop up you still get notified by mousing over the RED tray indicator.

It’s pretty much business as usual from here.  It goes through the client connector install routine and you have to click, click, click.

How do you know you have installed it?  Check in your WHS console, Settings, and the Resources tab.  You should see Windows Home Server with Power Pack 3 as well as the Version information box of 6.0.2423.0.

That’s it.  Install all your clients and listen to Podcast 66 with Jonas Svensson of Microsoft.  We talk all about PP3 and it’s features.

If you don’t have Windows Home Server yet you can now download the trial DVD with PP3 pre-installed.  Go here to download.

Here is a quick rundown of the PP3 features and what Jonas and I will be talking about on Podcast 66.

Windows 7 Libraries integration

When you install the Windows Home Server Connector and log on a computer running Windows 7, you can access the Windows Home Server shared folders from the Windows 7 libraries.

Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression

After you install the Windows Home Server Connector to enable the home server backup for your computer running Windows 7, you can suppress the Action Center warning reminding you that Windows Backup has not been set up.

Windows 7 power settings

You can configure your computer running Windows 7 to wake up at a scheduled backup time and then go back to sleep after the backup finishes.

· Console support for Windows 7

Windows 7 is properly displayed as the operating system shown in the Computers & Backup tab.

Windows Search

Windows Search 4 is included to improve query search times, indexing times, and reliability. Extended Remote Discovery increases the efficiency of searching across all your libraries running Windows Search 4. Files encrypted with EFS are now supported.

TV archive

Windows Home Server can automatically archive recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This enables playback in the correct format for your home computers and/or portable devices.

Console view

You can view information about your home server’s storage space, hard drives, backup status, and more from Windows Media Center.