WHS keeps all the passwords in sync in a non-domain environment. When a user's password is not in-sync between a client machine and the server, then the user is prompted to change one of the two passwords. Either they can change the client machine password to be in sync with the server, or vice versa. That keeps all passwords in sync
Cheers Ken From: Jon Harris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 8 August 2008 9:02 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Personal laptop - home backup? Yeah all of that is some of what I wanted to look at but until I know that the printer sharing is as seamless as the file sharing is purported to be all of that is mute. I have one HO with 2 laptops and one desktop trying to share 2 printers and 2 shares. The owners change passwords on the machines they use, laptops, and forget to change them on the desktop. Needless to say file and print sharing dies until they "remember" to go back and change the password on the "server" machine. That and when they shut down the laptops at night they then have to reconnect to the share to print. This technology has promised to make it as seamless as running in a domain without the hardware needed to maintain a domain. Jon On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 6:43 AM, Ken Schaefer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: WHS has lots of benefits, but file/printer sharing is just standard SMB/CIFS, which Macs understand. The benefit of the file sharing stuff is that you can choose, on a share by share basis, whether that share should be protected by redundancy. If so, the files in that share are written to two physical disks (and NTFS reparse points are used to allow transparent access to either copy). That means you get the benefit of RAID1 without actually having to configure a RAID1 array - the disks in the server are just formatted as NTFS, and if the server dies, you can put the disks into any Windows machine (or some other OS that can read NTFS) and get your files back. The backup function of WHS uses both (a) single instance storage and (b) is cluster based. That means that if a cluster exists in a previous backup, or on another machine, it doesn't get stored again. That really helps if you need lots of backups (all your programs etc don't change from backup to backup) or if you have multiple machines (since Windows etc is the same on all of them). It also has a few other benefits (like a free Godaddy cert, and a DDNS service via the homeserver.com<http://homeserver.com/> domain). But the main thing I like about WHS is the restore functionality. And that's the important part. You can either mount a backup as a drive letter, and just copy files back. Or you can boot off the restore CD, and restore the whole machine. WHS even provides a folder of critical drivers (it analyses your client machines for required mass storage controller drivers, NIC drivers etc), which you can then copy onto a USB key and supply to the WinPE based restore app. When I upgraded the SO's desktop to use a larger hard disk (100GB to 1TB), I just did a backup, booted off the recovery CD, and then restore the backup to the new disk. Up and running again, with exactly the same functionality, in less than 60 minutes. She then had an extra 900GB to store VMC TV recordings :-) If you have Windows on a Mac via Bootcamp, you can even backup the MacOS partition(s) for an image restore (file based restore isn't an option, since the WHS client doesn't understand the various Mac file system options) Cheers Ken From: Jon Harris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] Sent: Friday, 8 August 2008 8:24 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Personal laptop - home backup? Nice I did not know it could do that but then all I have had time to do with the WHS is get it installed. I was looking at it more from the stand point of a file and print server for some of my garage/home clients. I keep forgetting to bring in an old laptop that I was going to install the client on to check access to printers mounted to the server. That would be half of my clients needs, sharing printers. Jon On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 6:18 AM, Ken Schaefer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: I believe that OP is talking about the external drive connected to the Airport Extreme. If that drive is to be shared between a Mac and PC, then it would need to be FAT32. Or if that external drive is to be used to backup both PC *and* Mac, then it might need to be FAT32. >From what I can tell, the only current requirement is backing up the Dell >laptop. The Dell laptop, AFAIK, isn't formatted with FAT32 (or even worse, >FAT). The Mac can be backed up to the existing external disk. The Dell can be >backed up using Windows Home Server. Alternatively, the Mac could be configure >to rsync documents to the WHS. Cheers Ken From: Jon Harris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] Sent: Friday, 8 August 2008 8:07 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Personal laptop - home backup? Correct me if I am wrong but it appears he is wanting to use this backup to keep a Mac and a PC in sync. >SNIP There is only a single dell laptop which is always connected with wireless at home. So we want to take backups. What device do you use for this? I tested apple time capsule and their airport extreme with an external usb disk attached. Biggest issue is to keep it compatible between mc and windows it only supports FAT32 >END SNIP He specifically mentions FAT32, that would leave out Home Server if I am reading it correctly. Jon On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 8:46 PM, Ken Schaefer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: Home Server can't backup a FAT/FAT32 client partition. But I don't think that the OP's client machine has FAT/FAT32 partitions. Cheers Ken From: Jon Harris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] Sent: Friday, 8 August 2008 10:36 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Personal laptop - home backup? I don't think Home Server supports FAT or FAT32. I have a test machine sitting on the floor of my office but I can't get back to it for a few days. Jon On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Ken Schaefer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: Ara Avvali [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] > Subject: OT: Personal laptop - home backup? <snip> > Basically I am trying to do what apple does with time machine and time > capsule under vista Windows Home Server Cheers Ken -- M.BT<http://m.bt/> (UNSW), B.Com Microsoft MVP - Windows Server (IIS) MCITP (EA, SA), MCTS (SQL Server, ISA), MCSE + Security, MCDBA http://adopenstatic.com/blog ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
