What To Do When You Go On The Road or Your Parents Don’t Want a Windows Home Server Of Their Own?
16. Feb, 2010 | by welchwerks |
19 Comments
We all love how WHS backs up the computers in our home network.
But what about when you go on the road or your parents don’t want a WHS of their own?
Well here is my story;
I decided to install Windows 7 Pro on my parent’s computer and laptop over the weekend. I was pretty busy studying for my brokers test so they dropped them off, anyway after I completed the installs I opted to add their pc and laptop to the WHS and back them up, I also added Hamachi 2.0.1.66 to both of their systems, I already had it on the server so I just joined there computer to my Hamachi network then I sent them home, once they were back home and on the net I confirmed there Hamachi was running , I saw their machines on my network and in the console and so I did a manual backup even though I did one at my place
this first backup from their home took a little bit but it did finish, the second one took less than 10 minutes to complete WOW, then I had them streaming music thru there media center add-in from my WHS how cool 
Side notes: 1) I used to use Team Viewer to RDP into their system to fix things now I can use windows RDP
2) As you can see I need MS to add more users to WHS, hint, hint
WELCHWERKS
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Author Info
Hope the test went well?
Andrew
I have a lot of studying to do before next friday, thanks ill need the luck
welchwerks,
Is there any way you could provide a tutorial to set this up on my WHS and my Mom’s computer. I’m sure I can install it but not sure how to set it up to work to be able to back up via WHS console.
Thanks,
Chuck
Cool but I also would like to know how its set up?
Chuck, I will do my best
1. For Server
a. Download Hamachi 2.0.1.66 hint: (Google Hamachi 2.0.1.66 )it’s not on their site anymore
(when you install Hamachi for easy access there is a checkbox to make a desktop shortcut, us it on both server and clients, its handy for confirmation)
b. Remote desktop into server from a client
c. Install Hamachi on server, setting up a Hamachi server name and password
2. Clients
a. Best to have the client connected by cat 5 or 6 initially
b. Install Hamachi and connect to same Hamachi network as server
c. You should now see server and client on the Hamachi screen
(Hamachi automatically runs as a service so don’t worry about rebooting and loosing connection)
d. Install WHS connector I like http://servername:55000 if you don’t get the WHS connector page you need to go to Control Panel\System and Security\System\… and make the workgroups match, come to think about it this may not matter, anyway
e. Add clients pc to WHS network along with usernames
f. The order above is not really important but backing up is so Back up time (my favorite part)almost, it gets better ?
g. Now send your mom home and tell her to get on the net
h. Open up your Hamachi you should see her computer on the Hamachi screen
(also under network in windows her computer should be there, give it a few networks are always slow when you’re watching them) my wife is always asking were the network went
i. When it shows up open up the WHS console, Computers and backup her computer should be there in all its little blue glory, if it’s not. check Hamachi again to confirm it has the little green dots next to server and her client pc.
j. Choose manual backup this will take a while depending on your network speed. with my gigabit network it took about 20-30 min, but then the 2nd manual backup was 10 min, and the 3rd was an automatic backup and it took 10 min (now that was my favorite part) almost
k. O ya don’t forget to have her open you’re her desktop Shared folders shortcut and play some of your music
l. As an extra during setup if you need to remote over to her pc I use Team viewer http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx
m. If I missed something that’s because I’m better at breaking things then fixing thing them and that’s my disclaimer
n. Anyone want to add to this feel free
Thanks for the guide. I think I follow most of it but I have a few more questions. It appears your guides says that my Mom’s computer would physically need to be in my local network when I initially set this up. Is that correct? Is there any way to do this all remotely?
Other than that, I think I could follow this.
Thanks,
Chuck
yes i believe it is Necessary to start the first backup locally on your network.
give backup a try, also hamanchi you can install from anywhere
You can try the initial backup from afar but when i tried it would fail about 25% every time
make sure her computer wont go to sleep on you and you might want to Up her internet speed for a month, i use cox cable we can choose 256 up to 3mg upload speeds
if you get stuck , ill try and help
this is exciting. Do you think you back up a WHS server like this. I have 2 WHS servers at different sites and would love to back them up over the net.
What brokers license? Series 7? That is what I do for a living.
Good Luck!
Do you know how to set hamanchi up remotely? I have the same problem, parents always needing computer help and being able to remote desktop into their computer would be a huge help. I would love to attempt setting up back up remotely, if anyone gets that to work, please post details!
Welchwerks,
Hamachi is pretty cool and is a great way to connect a PC that is not part of your LAN to your WHS. Before I got a WHS for my shop I wanted to back up my work desktop but I didn’t want to haul it home and put in on the LAN to do it. I tried a few things but nothing worked. So during the nerds Friday evening dinner we hatched a plan to use Hamachi.
I had never used the service before so it was all new to me. One of the nice things about Hamachi is it is so simple to use. Installed it on my home WHS and went to work the next day and installed it on my work desktop. Image the happy dance I did when I connected to my home WHS via the web site and downloaded the Connector software and joined my home WHS.
It was then I discovered two small flaws and while not deal breakers they need to be pointed out. The first one you already covered by doing the initial backup of the remote machines while they were still on your LAN. It will take a very long time to do this first back up remotely if you don’t.
The second problem is if you need to do a restore. There is no way to connect the remote machine to the WHS via the web. Because of this the machine must be brought back to the LAN to do the restore. While a small hassle it is still better than not having any sort of back up of the machine in the first place. The bonus to this of course is you can make your folks (or friends) take you out for a free meal once you kick off the restore. Then when you get back home the machine is restored and you can send them on their way.
Neat trick using Hamachi to stream the content on your WHS to their remote Media Center, I never thought of that. How does it work out for them performance wise?
Nice post!
fasthair
ps… your WHS back up is almost a month old
Thanks todd,
its Real Estate Brokers test,Las Vegas,NV
should be a little easier that your stock brokers lic.?
Thanks fasthair,
For bringing up the restore issue,everyone take not of this !!
and as for the music it works great
MOM uses a 6gb download thru cox cable, i am working on her streaming my movies soon, now that will be a test, for my upload speed, when do the DOCsis 3.0 router come out.? wink,Ceton,wink
(hey how did that get in there?)
Scott,
first download the version mentioned above, then install it on any machine creating a server name,and password.
then install on the second machine remotely if that is the case. and connect to the name you chose when installing on the first.
hope you have better luck on the remote initial backup, as fasthair and I can attest to probability of it timming out
but you will be able to connect at least
after running http://servername:55000 on connecter on remote PC, you could do all this remotley for her using TEAMVEIWER mentioned above
let us know. there is lots of help on nthis forum
Hi Todd,
I hope you are refuring to just the small shared folders on one server being backed up to the other , although you might try using DBDD or synctoy thru Hamanchi
DBDD is a WHS add-in that backs up specific shared folders to an exrenal drive
and if that external drive were a mapped drive on another WHS (thanks to Hamanchi) at a remote location
o.k im rambling, but give it a try
post if you get stuck
review Tim Deleo’s topic on Synctoy
DBDD download at this great website http://www.mediasmartserver.net/add-ins/
I had never heard of teamviewer, while reading their info it says they have a server version. Their info also states you can set up a vpn using the software. Would this be able to work in place of hamachi?
i did notice that, but am not sure that it loads as a service ,worth looking into, teamveiwer works great.for the family IT job.
Hi Todd, check this out
backing up SBS 2008 to whs
http://mswhs.com/2010/02/17/backup-sbs-to-whs/
Good write-up! Have been using this since Beta days and works fine.
The easy way to do a restore, (which I’ve had to do some time ago), is to use one of your local machines, attach a suitable HDD and then do a local restore to that drive, then send that off to the remote site.
Easy, quick and reliable – as long as the other end can change the drives.
I have been doing this for a while now, and the only thing I have to correct is that if you are willing to leave your computer on for long enough, the initial backup will work over Hamachi. I have done the initial backup over Hamachi twice now, with a 100GB drive taking 48 hours, and a 30gb taking 4 hours, being limited by my home network’s download speed of 3mbps. So its not bad at all if you’re willing to let it run for the full length.
additionally, while I have used teamviewer quite a bit myself, I have found that LogMeIn works better for the tech support that you would be giving family memebers. Not to mention you are already using their VPN software…just saying. i use LogMeIn remote access for all my personal computers and those of family memebers. Its incredibly reliable and works perfectly. In my opinion its even better than MS RDP.
Lastly, another way you can take advantage of hamachi is by giving other people (in my case family) access to some of your shared files. It works really well, all you have to do once hamachi is installed is save a windows logon password for a specific user account on WHS and map the server share. it works perfectly, and with LogMeIn’s new web interface, you have complete control over which nodes in the network see which other nodes, and which networks clients are attached to.
In summary, I have been using Hamachi with my WHS for a long time now and it has served me VERY well.
I think its time to get the rest of my family backed up,;)
or at least my daughters laptop when she is off to college