WHS 2011 rollcall and guide

[Beefcake550]

Hi everyone,

I have landed some "new to me" hardware (i7 920) that i want to use, potentially as my new SageTV server in the basement. I wanted to try out WHS 2011 on this machine and wanted to know if anyone has got it working.

I tried it once a while back and things were not too bad, but I believe I had other hardware issues like a bad network router ruining my channel changing experience (I'm using DirecTV HTTP channel change).

I currently have a WHS v1 machine in "production mode" that I will not disrupt (except for borrowing a HDPVR tuner) until I get this working/not working.

Any shout outs like "I have it and it works/doesn't work" would be great.

[Beefcake550]

bump.. 77 reads and no replies? no one is using WHS 2011?

[eqwalker]

From what I have read, the ones that have tried SageTV for WHS on WHS2011 were not very successful. I currently have WHSv1 with SageTV for WHS and it is working fine. Being that WHS2011 no longer has DE (even though there are some add-ins coming that will provide DE like functionality) I have chose not to consider WHS2011. From what I have seen WHS2011 has not been selling well anyway and is probably a dead product (looks like SageTV is too). I have a copy of 2011 but decided against it since my WHSv1 with a 20 terabyte storage pool is working fine.

[gplasky]

I'm looking at doing this but haven't begun. I'll be building a new server with a hardware RAID card. Since the add-in wasn't updated to the newer format I will be installing the standard Windows version of Sage and run it as a service. I'm doing research now into what else needs to be installed to support bda drivers. I'll be using it strictly as a headless server. This should be no different than the ones who have it running on Windows server 2008 R2.

Gerry

[Beefcake550]

I guess I'll post back here with my updates of how it's going.

[AtariJeff]

Just yesterday I was researching if I should consider WHS2011. Conclusion:

The loss of DE, not a big deal since I have to split up folders on different drives to backup to a NAS.

Only being able to have one backup drive at a time, a true PIA and no way I could use it to backup my DVD/BD rips. So far my music, photos, etc. is still under 2TB which is the drive size limit so I could back those up inside the WHS environment. Regardless, my NASLite server has backups of everything.

Backing up the home PC's. Here's a big one. WHS can automatically backup up to 10 PC's on a network. A comparable product such as Norton Ghost has a license that will only do 3 PC's and is at least $30 more. That alone to me is worth having WHS in the house.

SageTV. I've resigned to the fact that I'll need to go back to a dedicated box for Sage or whatever solution is next.

Having said all that I am not going to change from WHS V1 until my hardware dies and I need to upgrade, or SageTV is unsupported and simply stops working.

[Beefcake550]

So, after night #1, here's my progress
1) Got all drivers installed from motherboard/chipset
2) Installed win2008 R2 bda msi kit. (google it)
3) Installed HDHR software
4) Installed 64bit and then 32bit Java
5) Installed SageTV for WHS (even though WHS plugin won't work I wanted to try this because of the extra license that stays free)
6) Setup SageTV from scratch with HDHR to get some channels going
7) Success watching on HD200 in basement.

I left the HD200 streaming in the basement all day because one of my last problems was extenders randomly stopping/pausing and would need to be powered off/unplugged. If this setup survives all day, then I will attempt to move an HD-PVR with HTTP tuning and DirecTV box upstairs onto the setup tomorrow likelty

Issues to check out:
- since "tab" in the WHS dashboard is not there, how do I manually start/stop the service if I ever needed to?
- since "tab" in the WHS dashboard is not there, can I really enter registration keys with the icon that says so?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

Issues to check out:
- since "tab" in the WHS dashboard is not there, how do I manually start/stop the service if I ever needed to?
- since "tab" in the WHS dashboard is not there, can I really enter registration keys with the icon that says so?

Start and stop your services one of two ways:
(This is more Windows XP but you get the idea.)
1. Logon to Windows with Administrator rights.
2. Click Start > Control Panel.
3. Double-click Administrative Tools.
4. Double-click the Services icon.
5. Double-click the service that you want to stop or start.
6. When the Service Properties window appears, do one of the following:

If the service is running, click Stop the service.
If the service is not running, click Start the service.

7. Click OK.

or:
1. Start a command prompt with Administrator privileges.
2. Type 'services.msc"
3. Double-click the service that you want to stop or start.
4. When the Service Properties window appears, do one of the following:

If the service is running, click Stop the service.
If the service is not running, click Start the service.

5. Click OK.

For your second question:
Yes-you can really enter registration keys with the icon that says so.

Gerry

[Beefcake550]

Learnings from last night.....

- HD200 stayed streaming all day no issues when I got home about 15 hours later.
- I think SageTV was still "running", but when I ran the "sageTV service application", it said the service was not running while task manager showed 1 process labeled "SageTV Servies". Unfortunately, I was too lazy to go turn on an extender to try it out.
- I had to reboot the machine anyway for some update that occurred, and when it rebooted, I notice 2 "SageTV Services" processes in task manager. Not sure what to think here.


Next step is to attach HD-PVR and DirecTV box to this machine and temporarily go down to 1 tuner on the main box. This is better to do on the weekend since less shows are recorded at our house. This will be the "big" test of functionality. If this works out, then I believe testing the new system will be complete and I can "schedule" the actual upgrade to occur. lol

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

I notice 2 "SageTV Services" processes in task manager. Not sure what to think here.

This is normal with version 7 of SageTV.

[Jesse]

BDA support is baked in to WHS 2011.

Jesse

[Beefcake550]

Originally Posted by Jesse

BDA support is baked in to WHS 2011.

Jesse

Thanks, when I do the final install, I will attempt to leave out this step and see what happens.

[Scriber]

Good stuff here as my new WHS 2011 box (to replace my WHS v1/Sage box) sits in pieces on my bsmt table awaiting time to build it.

My h/w is not nearly as impressive as yours -- G620; HVR1600....but it s/b cool and low, low energy, and should do the trick for the time being.

I will going the same way as GPlasky using the Windows version of Sage and run it as a service rather than the add-in. Never liked the add-in anyway. Hadnt thought about the licensing angle tho.

Keep the info coming.

[Beefcake550]

OK, so not much happened over the weekend as I have two boys ages 6 and 7. We also had house guests.

That said, I did get some testing via HDHR tuners. I did see some problems where Sage gave system messages referring to halts in recordings and some other BS. I think it's related to the idea that I had the HDHRs mapped to both Sage installs at the same time, so I am going to discount them for now.

I also got some weird "unable to access filesystem" messages when I first came back to check on the HD200. If I changed the channel around and around, no more problem. I am going to chalk this up to the above for now.

Tonight begins the real testing. I moved an HDPVR onto the test system and will set it up tonight when the kiddos go to bed. I took off the HDHRs and let the "production" system have them all to itself. My plan is to setup a bunch of records on all different channels all night and check them in the morning before work. This should get an initial "it works" or "it doesn't work" vibe. I'm hoping for the first!

[Jesse]

Definitely keep us posted. I had rotten luck trying to migrate to WHS 2011. I did not have the luxury of testing to find the problem, but I suspect it was a combination of the 64 bit usbuirt drivers and the hauppauge drivers. I had a couple of hard lockups when installing the usbuirt drivers and the hauppauge devices (HDPVR and colossus) would drop out a couple of times a day.

I have sage very stable on Win7 32 bit, but am planning on trying again to migrate to WHS 2011 (I just want one server). My migration plans are a little up in the air right now. The PCI-X slot on my mobo seems to have failed yesterday. At first I thought I had lost the old 3ware raid card, but when I moved it to a PCI slot we were back in business. This on the heels of loosing one of the mobo SATA ports...

With no info on the future of sage it is hard to justify any new hardware. I could just keep using the existing hardware, but but with ports and slots failing one after another I am loosing faith in my server board. I may just move sage onto my existing WHS 2011 machine. I will have to run the raid card in a standard PCI slot. Not optimum but it will get the job done.

I understand about the boys. Ours are 9 and 6. Life is just scouts, soccer and homework (not necessarily in that order).

Jesse

[Beefcake550]

Ramblings/Observations from last night.

Goal:
Setup the HDPVR and remove the HDHR tuners from the test system (so only 1 HDPVR is hooked up). Setup a bunch of recordings to test channel changing via DirecTV HTTP tuning.

Outcome:
No major wrestling to get HDPVR hooked up. I just had a brain fart on which coax wire in the basement fed the room upstairs for the DirecTV feed. Lots of stair climbing, so I guess that's exercise, right? So, setup went easy and I setup a bunch of recordings from 8pm to 12am and then from 12:30am to 7am. I initially installed the 1.5.7 drivers for the HDPVR as that was most stable on my WHS v1 machine. the latest 1.6.29207 gave me lots of "halt detected in recording" notices previously. The first half of the night recording went well with no channel changes missed (previously had problems with this). I did, however, have a "halt detected in recording" with the 1.5.7 drivers near the end of the first half of recordings. I also tested the system a little harder by watching one of the shows that was recorded earlier in the night with problems. Between 12 and 12:30, I noticed the halt and decided to try upgrading the drivers for the HDPVR to 1.6.29207. This went flawlessly and required a reboot, so I did that. The second half of the night's recording session went flawlessly. Now system messages and no "halt detected in recording" messages.

For today/tonight:
I'm going to let the system sit idle all day and then setup more recordings tonight and give it another shot. If I get a full night a clean recordings without a single "halt" message, I'll declare victory with the HDPVR. My next goal is going to be bringing the HDHR back into the equation by removing it from the "production" machine and putting it on the "test" machine. This will limit the "production" machine down to 1 HDPVR tuner, so it'll probably have to wait until late tonight or the weekend. After that, I plan to throw Diamond into the mix and that will match the setup I have now.

Wish me luck and I really hope these ramblings help other people make a decision about WHS 2011. So far, it's had minor hiccups that didn't lead to anything reproducible to worry about.

-Brian

[Jesse]

Which rev of the HDPVR do you have? I have one of the very first versions and it has never played well with the newer drivers. I want to say the 1.5.7 drivers have been the most reliable. When I tried moving to WHS 2011 I made the mistake of trying the latest drivers and I think that may have been part of my problem.

Keep the info coming

Jesse

[Beefcake550]

My hardware:
HDHR dual tuner (using for unencrypted QAM tuning of HD cable channels (locals)
HDPVR - one C2 rev and one F2 rev
Sage 7.1.9 WHS version installed on WHS 2011

Ok, so updates from last night....

I added the HDHR and it needed a software/firmware update, so I have to let that occur and that needed a system reboot. I didn't want to, since I wanted to test longevity, but it is what it is. Stopped Sage service, did a channel scan, started Sage, and added the HDHR tuners. I also removed them (HDHR tuners) from the "production system" to avoid conflicts. I setup a whole bunch of recordings from 12am to 7am. I utilized at least 2 tuners at once and for some time, all 3. All recordings go to the same disk.

The good news is that everything worked and I had no problems with any recordings this morning and no system messages greeting me this morning!!! I am going to leave the system idle during the day today to test system up time. I also had to remove the HDHR tuners from the test setup to put them back into the "production system" so as to avoid recording conflicts.

So my plan from now until the weekend (when I would possibly have time for the upgrade) is to use the system on and off without doing reboots and see how it goes. If it's all good by the weekend and assuming I have time, I'll go ahead with the planned upgrade.

[Beefcake550]

The party has started....so far going well on the hardware side.

[SprDtyF350]

I don't see why there should be a problem. I have been running WHS2011 with 2 HDHR, and 2 Colossus with no problems pretty much ever since WHS2011 went on sale. Was hard not to for $45.00... Only things out of the ordinary I had to do was install the normal Sage server software instead of the WHS version. And I have a 4 am reboot setup in Task Scheduler so my Colossus cards don't freak out after a couple days.

I like the WHS V1 interface better but was never a big fan of Drive Extender so didn't care that it was gone.