Creat a Windows Home Server (part 3) - Configure the Backup Settings & Configure the Windows Home Server Settings

Configure the Backup Settings

By default, all the hard drives on all your home computers will be backed up every night between midnight and 6 a.m. You might just want to leave that setting the way it is. You can customize these settings in the Windows Home Server Console by using the Settings option if you want, though. Additionally, the Windows Home Server Console offers an easy way to view the backups that have taken place, to back up any computer right now, and to configure what a backup should contain.

To view backup options, follow these steps:

1.	From any networked computer with Windows Home Server Connector software installed, right-click the Windows Home Server icon in the Notification area of the taskbar.
2.	Click Windows Home Server Console.
3.	Type the password, and click the right arrow to proceed.
4.	Click the Computers & Backup tab.
5.	Click View Backups. From here you can do the following: a. View the backups that have taken place. b. Keep or delete a backup. c. Learn how to restore files from backup. d. Learn more about backup management and backup cleanup.
6.	Click Backup Now. From here you can do the following: a. Enter a name for the manual backup. b. Perform a manual backup.
7.	Select a computer from the list of computers available on the Computers & Backups tab. Click Configure Backup. From here you can do the following: a. Add files and folders to back up that are not configured automatically, such as Documents, Pictures, Music, and the like. b. Select the volumes to back up if more than one exists.
8.	Click Settings, and click the Backup tab in the Windows Home Server Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 7. Figure 7. Backup settings.
9.	On the Backup tab in the Windows Home Server Settings dialog box, you can do the following: a. Change the start and end time the backup occurs. b. Change the amount of time to keep the backups. c. Perform a backup cleanup (which deletes old backups that aren’t needed).

Configure the Windows Home Server Settings

As shown in Figure 7, the Settings dialog box offers lots of tabs for configuring how Windows Home Server should perform. There are several categories, each of them listed here with their options defined:

• General

  • Configure the date and time.

  • Configure the regional settings.

  • Configure Windows Update.

  • Configure Customer Experience Improvement Program.

  • Configure Windows error reporting.

• Passwords

  • Change the Windows Home Server password.

  • Configure the User Accounts Password Policy.

• Media Sharing

  • Enable streaming of Music, Photos, and Videos shared folders so that you can stream digital media from Windows Home Server to a device that supports Windows Media Connect.

• Remote Access

  • Configure Web site connectivity.

  • Configure your broadband router.

  • Configure your domain name.

  • Configure the settings for your Windows Home Server Web site.

• Add-ins

  • Install and uninstall Windows Home Server add-ins.

  • View available add-ins.

• Resources

  • Activate Windows Home Server.

  • View hardware information about your home server.

  • View Windows Home Server version information.

  • Learn more about Windows Home Server.

  • Connect to the Windows Home Server community.

  • Contact product support.

Finally, you can shut down Windows Home Server from the Settings dialog box by clicking Shut Down. For more information about Windows Home Server Settings, click Help in the Windows Home Server Console.

View the Home Network Health

There’s one last item to review before moving on, and that’s the Network icon in the Windows Home Server Console. This icon offers a visual reference about how healthy your network is. Figure 8 shows that the network health is critical. Clicking the Network Critical icon opens the screen shown in Figure 9, which notes here that one of the computers on the network does not have antivirus software installed. Anytime you see a critical icon, review the information, and see whether the problem can be resolved. If it cannot or if you want to ignore it, select Ignore This Issue.

Figure 8. Network Critical means something needs your attention right away.

Explore Additional Features

Windows Home Server comes with additional features you might want to explore by clicking Start, All Programs; these include Administrative Tools, Remote Assistance, and Remote Access. With these tools you can further personalize your Windows Home Server PC, access the PC from anywhere you can gain Internet access through a Web browser, and perform such tasks as setting local security policies, looking at performance logs, and viewing items collected in Event Viewer.