I’ve had a lot of email this week from readers asking for an update on Windows Home Server at CES. That’s not surprising, given Microsoft indicated last month that there would be an update on new hardware at the show.

“Let me completely confirm we are 100% committed to Vail, and continue to work on all the core features outside of Drive Extender. We fully expect to be able to show some of our new and partnered OEM solutions at CES.”

Unfortunately, that update failed to materialise, as indeed did any real presence for Windows Home Server at CES. For a consumer-oriented product that is due to be released this year, Vail’s absence on the Microsoft booth was disappointing, but expected. Sure, there’s a Windows Phone 7 add-in that’s being developed for Vail, but there’s no news on new hardware and OEM partnerships.

With regard to Drive Extender, Microsoft remains tight-lipped whilst they prepare the next Vail beta with the feature removed. From informal discussions here at CES (not with Microsoft, I should say) I did learn there may be third-party companies interested in developing some kind of solution to bring storage pooling back to the Vail platform, but there are no confirmed plans that I can share at the moment. But if Microsoft chooses to hide the next version of Windows Home Server away in a closet at major consumer events like CES, then you would have to question the commercial incentive for third-parties to create applications and products for that ecosystem.

One continuing trend that I did see at CES this year is the increasing focus of the consumer electronics vendors on DLNA media sharing solutions, which work as well with Windows 7 PCs and Macs as they do Linux NAS boxes and other home server platforms. Samsung’s AllShare looks fantastic, if you’re happy to buy a Galaxy handset or Galaxy Tab tablet as a controller. Sony certainly look to be taking on Sonos and Logitech with their new HomeShare product range, and perhaps at the top of the heap for media enthusiasts, LG’s Plex-based platform delivers a very rich experience for streaming movies, TV programmes, music and photos. With regard to the storage vendors, Iomega TV with Boxee looks like a fantastic prospect and the work the company have done on their console design has made their user experience much warmer and friendlier. I was also impressed by LG’s new S1T1 home server, with on the fly transcoding of content to PC/Mac, DLNA TV, tablet and mobile handset. Media streaming solutions demonstrated this week from Logitech, Netgear, Western Digital and Buffalo too look like excellent prospects for enjoying big-screen entertainment.

The need for consumer-friendly, centralised storage for media is more relevant than ever, and the products that are being built to take advantage of new media sharing and streaming experiences are increasing dramatically in quality. Windows Home Server can still have a role to play in that category, but certainly here at the show, Microsoft showed little desire to participate.

Tranquil PC today released the first images and details of their new AVA Media ixVL Media Centre, which is available next month.

Built around Intel’s Core i3 or i5 processor, the fanless system will run silent with a small footprint (240mm (wide) x 250mm (deep) x 100mm high), so fits the bill for living room HTPC.

The ixVL also packs an integrated, slot-loading CD/DVD (or optional Blu-ray) drive, built in IR receiver for a remote control, blue VFD display, HDMI and SPDIF audio/video connections as well as dual DVB-T (Freeview) tuners.

More information is on the way, I’m sure – in the meantime, contact sales@ava-media.co.uk to register your interest.

With rumours circulating that Showtime will be the latest TV channel to go online, and the number of connected TVs and other devices set to explode over the next five years, the question in my mind is whether the networks will continue to manage artificial barriers between regions when it comes to distributing their content, or whether someone will take the plunge and push for global distribution of content via the online channel?

Annoyingly, whilst we can all join the dots to see how such a service could work, the archaic business model which underpins the TV and Film industry is the major barrier to unlock. Kudos to Hulu for trying (and unfortunately failing) to work with content owners cross-borders to bring their online streaming service to the UK, as reported recently by the Telegraph.

A source close to Hulu said that the company had not totally ruled out a UK launch somewhere down the line: “It has definitely had to postpone its UK expansion plans, which the team are disappointed by. But without being able to secure any exclusive content – because Channel 4 and Five have already signed third party deals with YouTube and SeeSaw and ITV isn’t playing ball, it had to ensure it could sell the advertising inventory around the content it could secure. When those talks fell through – Hulu has been forced to walk away. But it remains hopeful that it can have a UK presence in the future – when the broadcasters realise they need to be more flexible with their business models.”

Clearly the content owners and aggregators have a battle on, and viewers will need to sit tight and see how it all shakes out. The key issue here, however, is not who brings me online TV from my own country, but who can bring unique and timely content from other countries to me. Here in the UK, I have a plethora of online TV choice available from all of the major networks – no-one yet does a great job of aggregating it (please step in here, Boxee) – but I’d really like to be able to access original US TV via Hulu. Unfortunately, content from Hulu is blocked in the UK – just as content from the UK’s BBC iPlayer is blocked in the US.

The likes of Hulu shouldn’t be working to aggregate UK content for a potential UK service – but rather be working with it’s existing partners to secure on demand rights for their existing library of content for other territories. I’d quite happily pay for a Hulu subscription, but not to watch a random Channel 5 reality TV show I could get over the air. But let me watch 24 and 30 Rock at the same time as my US cousins, and there’s value. I’m sure it’s a similar story for US viewers who have to wait for UK TV Shows to air in the US. The story is exactly the same in music – just swap Pandora and Spotify for Hulu and the BBC.

In the meantime, whilst the discussions continue and business models are tweaked, it may well be left to the likes of Apple to stitch the whole lot up in one fell swoop with an advanced Apple TV service. Jonny Evans at Computerworld swoons over the thought of an Apple branded connected TV, vs the digital media receiver they currently play at,

Sure, there’s plenty of speculation in this report but it is undeniable that this new connected opportunity is open to all the players in the digital home space. A space in which Apple holds a strong stack of good cards it could choose to play to make its front room invasion.

This battle is not about hardware and software, however – it’s about content, and having nailed a massive piece of the online music retail market, and a growing library of TV and Movie content available in the Apple Store, it may well be Apple who finally create the global media audience that we’ll inevitably become. But if Cupertino are pulling the strings throughout a vertically integrated ecosystem, that may make life easy for the viewer, but will life be as sweet for us as consumers, given Apple pricing?

In the meantime, those motivated enough to acquire content through alternative means will always be able to do so, whether it’s via VPN services, Usenet, Bittorrent and so on. But with every dodgy download and slightly dubious stream, the content owners lose more money (be it subscription or advertising revenue), whilst they fail to agree. If the content is compelling, differentiated and available, viewers will happily pay – we just need access.

You may have already noticed that over the weekend, we made a couple of tweaks and improvements to We Got Served’s layout to improve navigation, segment the site more clearly and hopefully help you enjoy our news and features in more depth than you could previously. Here’s a brief run down of what’s new!

Top “Quick Navigation” Bar

Positioned right at the top of the page, this is where you’ll find quick links to the most popular and most important content at WGS. Right now, you’ll see we’ve dropped in a link to our Vail Preview feature series as well as links to other popular areas of the site. You’ll find the links here will change over time, so make sure you have a quick scan to see any essential links here.

Main Navigation Bar

This is one of the biggest updates to the site – a brand new navigation bar from which you can dig down into specific areas of the site to browse news, features and reviews, or if you just want to look at articles on a specific topic, then you can find those categories right here. We re-coloured the navigation bar with a slight gradient to warm it up too. It’s a minor thing, but I like it anyway!

At the top level of the navigation, you can click on Add-ins and Apps (more on this in a bit), News by product category, WGS Forums, our popular How to Guides, Reviews by category, a new Small Business section (again, more below), Video clips published on the site and the WGS Wiki. Where you see a double arrow, that means there’s a drop down available – just hover over the menu option and the drop down will gracefully appear.

Menu Drop Downs

Currently, our new Add-ins section, as well as News and Reviews have drop down menus. Our add-ins section is split into Add-in News, alongside categorised listings of Windows Home Server v1 add-ins, and they’ll be joined by a Windows Home Server “Vail” add-ins section, just as soon as someone publishes an add-in for the new platform!

Add-ins are Back at We Got Served!

Whilst we’ve been hosting our add-ins section over at Home Server plus for the last year, we’ve been working hard on WGS to enable the community ratings features we know many of you rely on to understand the most popular and best Windows Home Server add-ins available. After a relatively intense period of website mangling, that system is now in place, which means we can bring the add-in list back home to WGS!

To view the entire list, simply click on WHS v1 in the Add-ins & Apps menu, and you can browse through the full list of WHS add-ins, with reader comments and ratings for each.

As you can see, an RSS feed is now available for the whole list, so any add-in updates published on the site will hit your RSS feed instantly.

If you only want to view a particular add-in category, say Media, just select it from the menu, and you’ll get a run down of that add-in category again. You can subscribe to a category level add-in list too.

Want to find out more about an add-in? Just click on the entry and you’ll get full details on the add-in, including the option to rate the add-in, post about the add-in to Twitter as well as rate the add-in. Download links to the developer’s website, community support links, WGS add-in reviews and changelogs are available for each add-in listed.

Now that’s Vail’s released, I’m sure a lot of you want to install it. Well, unfortunately for a number of you, you have headless systems (like the HP MediaSmart Server or the Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server H340) which make installation of Vail a pain No keyboard, mouse, monitor – what’s going on? Or if you’re like me you just want to set it and forget it until it’s completely installed. Which means a fully unattended installation via USB drive is about the only way to go. This can be a relatively complex procedure for the uninitiated, but the good news is, we’ve got an easy walkthrough to help you out.

What You Need

Before you begin, you’ll need a few things:

• Windows Home Server Vail Preview Installation DVD ISO
• A 4GB or larger blank USB flash drive,
• Microsoft Store Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.

Step 1: Install the Win7 USB/DVD tool and start it.

Select the Vail ISO and proceed.  It will warn you that it will format the USB drive and you will lose all content.  Assuming that’s fine, proceed, and it will format, prep and copy the ISO to the flash drive for you.  That will take a few minutes depending on the system.

And this is much easier than the old method.

Step 2: Open up the Flash Drive that you used in Windows Explorer.

You should see something like this:

Step 3: Create the Unattended Installation File

Now for unattended install, you’ll need to create a “cfg.ini” file in the root directory of your USB drive.  This will contain all the information and configuration settings needed to get Vail completely installed without your input along the way. The “cfg.ini” file should look like this:

[WinPE]
InstallSKU=SERVERHOMEPREMIUM
ConfigDisk=1
CheckReqs=0
SystemPartitionSize=60

[InitialConfiguration]
Language=en-US
Locale=0409
Country=US
KeyboardLayout=00000409
AcceptEula=true
ServerName=VailPremServer
PlainTextPassword=Str0ngPa$$w0rd
PasswordHint=This Is Your Password Hint
Settings=All

“InstallSKU” and “ConfigDisk” are both settings you should just leave alone. The first is to determine which product you are installing (bear in mind, there is only one SKU you can install – there will not be a “non-premium” or standard version of Vail) , and the second controlling whether to configure the disks. Both are necessary for the install to work.

However, setting “CheckReqs” to “0″ means that it will not check against the requirements to install, and the “SystemPartitionSize” setting lets you set the System Volume size manually. However, if you change this setting, you must leave 100GBs available after the install. Which means you’d have to have at least a 120GB hard drive if you went with a 20GB system partition.  So, no CF and most likely no SSD drives for your system disk.

As for “Language”, “Locale”, “Country” and “KeyboardLayout”, I wouldn’t recommend messing with these unless you know the proper values. You can change them post-install anyway.

“ServerName” should be very self explanatory. The name can be any string, up to 15 characters in length, but cannot start with a “dash” or contain spaces, and cannot be numbers only.

The “PlainTextPassword” is just what it sounds like: an unencrypted, unsecure presentation of your password. This must be a “strong” password, which must contain at least 3 of the 4: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.  Just remember this, you’ll be using it later.

Again, “PasswordHint” is self-explanatory. This option is required, so make sure it’s set.

“Settings” configure Error Reporting (Watson) and updates.  Setting it to “All” enables both, “Updates” disables error reporting and just gets updates, while “None” does neither.  Considering that this is a public beta, I highly recommend setting this to “all”. What’s the point of testing it if you don’t get a good sampling?

Now with that “cfg.ini” file on the USB drive along with Vail, you’re ready to install Vail on that headless system of yours!

Just a couple of notes:

• If you haven’t already read the release notes, make sure you hit F12, or F8, or whatever brings up the Boot selection menu, as the install seems to fail if the USB drvice is listed first.
• The install may take a couple of hours to completely, so you may want to do this overnight or go watch a movie.
• For those with headless OEM systems, booting of USB isn’t easy. But the best way to make sure it works, is unplug all the hard drives and wait long enough for the system to start booting of the USB flash drive, and then plug the hard drives back in.
• Remember: This will wipe ALL of your hard drives, so make sure they’re empty first!

If you’d like to discuss USB installation of Vail, make sure you head over to the Vail Preview discussion forums to share your thoughts.

We featured PlayOn Media Server last week on the site – it’s an application which allows you to view online video from a wide range of sources such as Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, CBS News, CNN and more on devices such as the PS3, Xbox 360 and a growing number of digital media receivers.
With a little tinkering, you can also use PlayOn Media Server with Windows Home Server!

Thanks to the guys at MediaMall Technologies, we have two free licenses (worth $39.99 each) to give away.

All I want to know is:
What is the best TV series of all time?

Head over to the WGS Forums to enter – You have a week to enter and we’ll pull two lucky winners out at random. Whilst the competition is open to all, PlayOn Media Server works best in the USA (as some of the content is restricted to US only viewers), so if you’re outside the US, you may want to give this one a miss (sorry!).

So, the competition closes on February 28th 2009. Get cracking!

More Info: Enter the Competition

It’s been a while since we updated our list of routers that can automatically be configured to support remote access by Windows Home Server.

You’ll probably know that Windows Home Server is meant to be able to configure remote access for your router if it supports uPnP, but in fact, this only seems to work with some routers. If you’re having problems with your existing router, make sure you’re running the latest firmware for the router, as this can work miracles.

So, if Windows Home Server auto-configured your router, then please visit the forums and let us know your router’s name and model number. If you have a firmware/hardware revision to hand, then that’s useful too. If you see a router listed that you do not believe auto-configures, it may be that you’re runner a different version of the router’s firmware. Please check the forum to see who submitted the router and contact them via the Personal Messaging system to check which firmware they’re using. Then let me know so I can update the list.

Update: List Updated 15th February 2009

So far we have:

• 3 Com 3CRWDR100A-72 (UK) (Firmware 2.06)
• 3Com 3CRWE554G72T (UK)
• Actiontec MI424-WR
• Asus WL-700gE (UK)
• Belkin N1 (UK)
• Belkin F5D7230-4 (UK)
• D-Link DGL-4100 (UK)
• D-Link DGL-4300 (UK)
• D-Link DGL-4500
• D-Link DI-524 (UK)
• D-Link DI-634M (UK)
• D-Link DIR-615 (UK) (NEW)
• D-Link DIR-625 (Firmware 1.09)
• D-Link DIR-635 (UK)
• D-Link DIR-655 (UK)
• Draytek Vigor2820 (Firmware 3.3.2_RC1) (NEW)
• Linksys BEFSR41 (UK)
• Linksys BEFSR81 (UK)
• Linksys BEFSX41 v.2 (UK)
• Linksys BEFW11S4 (UK)
• Linksys RT31P2
• Linksys RV082 (UK) (NEW)
• Linksys WAG300N (UK) (Firmware 1.01.06) (NEW)
• Linksys WRT54G (UK)
• Linksys WRT54GL (UK) (v1.1)
• Linksys WRT150N (UK)
• Linksys WRT300N (UK)
• Linksys WRT350N (UK)
• Linksys WRT600N
  Linksys WRT610N (UK) (NEW)
• Linksys WRVS4400N (UK)
• Microsoft MN-500
• Microsoft MN-700
• Netgear DG834 (UK) (Firmware 1.0.2.13)
• Netgear FVS114 (UK) (NEW)
• Netgear FVS318 (UK)
• Netgear GT834GT
• Netgear WGR614 (HW v.6,7) (UK)
• Netgear WGT624 (UK) (V3, Firmware V4.2.10_1.0.1)
• Netgear WPN824 (UK)
• Sitecom WL-153
• SMC SMCWGBR14-N (Firmware 1.0.0.13) (UK)
• Thomson SpeedTouch 585i (UK)
• TRENDnet TEW-633GR
• TP Link TP-WR541G (UK)
• US Robotics USR8200
• Xincom XC-DPG502 (FW 2.1)
• Zyxel P-334WT
• Zyxel P-2602R-D1A
• Zyxel P-2602HW-D1A
• Zyxel X-550
  

Keep sending in your router models via the link below.

More Info: Routers That Successfully Auto-Configure with Windows Home Server (WGS Forums)

Sarah over at Channel 10 points to a great new plugin for Media Center that allows you to add channel logos to your Media Center’s TV Guide.

Image: Hack7MC

My Channel Logos for 7MC bundles a set of US Channel logos with the plugin, and allows you to add your own logos too.

More Info: www.hack7mc.com

Our moderating team over at WGS Forums have this week launched a brand new Windows Home Server Frequently Asked Questions section which is designed to provide answers to the most common questions asked by new (and experienced WHS owners).

The FAQs have been compiled based on common posts we’ve seen on the forums, and currently cover a wide range of topics including:

Upgrading from the WHS Evaluation Edition
How to Manually Uninstall an Add-In
Troubleshooting Windows Home Server

and a whole lot more.

Head on over to the WGS Wiki to check out the list and feel free to shout if there’s other topics you’d like to see covered.

More Info: Windows Home Server FAQs

CD Ripper RipNAS Essentials recently received an update to version 1.5. New features and fixes are as follows:

• Inclusion of SqueezeCenter update DSP (to automatically inform SqueezeCenter when new tracks are ripped)
• Asset On / Off added to control page
• CD Ripping Engine on / Off added to control page
• DSP effects button to access DSP effects
• Fixed Batch Ripper crash when unloading (from restarting WHS)

Download: RipNAS Essentials v1.5

Those of you who are active on our forums will know by now that we’ve moved over to a brand new server.

As a result, the location of our forums has changed, so make sure you update your bookmarks!

The new address is http://forum.wegotserved.com

Direct links to the WGS Wiki have also changed – you can now find them at http://wiki.wegotserved.com

There may be a few broken links still to be resolved and the main menu link above is waiting for a redirection to go live. Until then, make sure you use the URLs above.

Looks like the new HP MediaSmart Server started shipping today!

We’ve had reports from readers who ordered their units from hp.com that they received their shipping emails this morning.

The first units should be arriving by Wednesday – if you’re one of the first to get yours, let us know what you think of it!