By Preston Gralla, ComputerWorld.com,
Things don't always go according to plan when using any networking hardware or software, and Windows Home Server (WHS) is no exception. If you run into trouble installing or using WHS or the Windows Home Server Connector and Console, check out these tips (and be sure to read my review of WHS.
Getting Windows Home Server Connector and Console to work
If all goes well, installing the Windows Home Server Connector (which also installs the Console) will be a breeze -- insert the CD, follow the prompts, and you're ready to go.
If all doesn't go well, though, you may end up pulling out your hair trying to track down the source of the problem. Could be your PC, your version of Windows, your home network, the home server software, your home router ... when it comes to network troubleshooting, the possibilities, unfortunately, are endless. So if you get a screen like one pictured below, you need help.
If you find that Windows Home Server Connector won't install, the problem may be a relatively simple one -- NetBIOS over TCP/IP isn't turned on in your network or on your PCs. WHS uses NetBIOS over TCP/IP to identify devices on your network and to communicate among them. If NetBIOS over TCP/IP isn't working properly, you're out of luck.
In Windows, there are three settings for NetBIOS over TCP/IP -- turn it on, turn it off or get the settings from your router. By default, Windows XP and Windows Vista are set up to use the NetBIOS setting from your home router.
If you're having trouble installing or running WHS, check your NetBIOS over TCP/IP settings to make sure that they're not turned off. This varies slightly in Windows Vista and Windows XP.
In Windows Vista:
1. Select Control Panel --> Network and Internet --> Network and Sharing Center --> Manage Network Connections. A screen appears, showing your network connection.
2. Right-click your network connection and choose Properties. The Local Area Connection Properties screen, like the one pictured below, appears.
3. Highlight Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP) and choose Properties, then click the Advanced button.
4. Click the WINS tab. The screen, shown below, appears. At the bottom, you'll see the NetBIOS setting. Make sure that Default is selected. Click OK, and keep clicking OK until all the screens disappear. You may need to reboot for the new setting to take effect.
In Windows XP, right-click My Network Places, then right-click your network connection and choose Properties. Then select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), click Properties, click the Advanced button and follow Step 4 above.
If that doesn't fix the problem, the issue may be with your router. If your home router doesn't support NetBIOS over TCP/IP, or supports it improperly, you can run into problems. Unfortunately, there's no list of routers that support it, so there's no simple way to confirm whether your router does.
Your best bet is to update the router's firmware. Check your manufacturer for information on how to do that. I have a Linksys WRT54GX4 and initially couldn't install the Windows Home Server Console. However, once I upgraded the firmware, it worked like a charm.
If upgrading your router doesn't do the trick, go back to the NetBIOS setting screen and select Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP and keep clicking OK until all the screens disappear. You may need to reboot for the new setting to take effect.
Getting remote access to work
One of WHS's most powerful features is remote access. From anywhere with Internet access, you can connect remotely to WHS to get access to files and folders. Even better: You can take control of any PC on your network remotely as well, as long as you've enabled remote access on that PC.
However, there are several "gotchas" along the way that might make it impossible for you to connect. In the rest of this article, I'll cover how to fix them. Note that I won't offer step-by-step instructions on how to make the connection, because that's beyond the scope of this article; turn to your WHS documentation for that information. Instead, I'll only cover how to fix problems you might run into.
If you have trouble making a connection, you may have to change your router settings to get it to work right with WHS. So you'll have to check your router's documentation for specific details. In this article, I'll show you how to do it with a Linksys WRT54GX4. The instructions will be similar or identical for other Linksys routers. For other brands, the concepts will be the same, but the screens will differ.
Before you start, you'll need to understand a little about your home router, home server and their IP addresses. Your router is assigned a dynamic IP address by your Internet provider, for example, 66.32.43.98. That's your network's external IP address -- the IP address that the Internet sees. Because it's dynamic, it can change at anytime.
Your router uses Network Address Translation to share that single, external IP address among all the computers on the network. But each computer also has its own internal IP address, such as 192.168.1.100, 192.168.1.101 and so on. The router has a built-in Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server that assigns the internal IP address to each PC. These internal IP addresses allow the PCs to communicate with each other and to connect to the Internet. With those facts as background, it's time to do some troubleshooting.
Troubleshooting your remote connection setup
After you enable a particular user account to connect remotely, you'll have to tell WHS to allow remote connections. That's where you may run into trouble.
Run the Windows Home Server Console, connect to your WHS, then select Settings --> Remote Access. You'll see a screen like the one pictured below.
If the Web Site Connectivity button isn't already turned on, click Turn On next to it. Then, in the Router section, click the Setup button. A screen will appear telling you that WHS is going to configure port forwarding for your router. With port forwarding, when you make a remote connection to your router, your router will forward those requests to your WHS machine. Without port forwarding, you won't be able to reach your server remotely.
Here's where your troubles may begin. WHS can only automatically configure your router if the router uses Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). If you get an error message saying that your router doesn't support UPnP, first check to see if in fact your router does support it -- many routers support it, but turn it off by default. Check your router's documentation for details.
In the Linksys WRT54GX4, log into your router by going to 192.1681.1 in your browser, leaving the user name blank and typing admin into the Password box. (If you've changed the password, use your new password instead.) Then click Administration. You'll see a screen like the one shown nearby. Scroll down to the UPnP section, select Enable, then click Save Settings. Now go back into the Router section on WHS and click the Setup button. It should be able to do the automatic configuration now.
Going mano a mano with your router
Even if you turn on UPnP, WHS may not be able to configure port forwarding. If it doesn't, you're going to have to go mano a mano with your router and configure port forwarding yourself.
When you configure it yourself, you tell all incoming traffic for specific ports to be forwarded to your WHS. More specifically, when you make a remote connection to WHS, you connect to three ports -- 80, 443 and 4125. We're going to tell your router to forward traffic from those ports to your WHS.
First you need to find out the IP address of your WHS. On any PC on your network, in Windows XP, open up a command line box by clicking Start --> Run. Type CMD into the text box and click OK. If you use Windows Vista, type CMD on the Start Search line. In either instance, when the command line box opens, type net view and press Enter. After you do, you'll see something like the following:
C:\Users\Preston>net view
Server Name Remark
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\\PRESTONSERVER
\\VISTA-DESKTOP
\\VISTA-LAPTOP
The command completed successfully.
Look for the name of your WHS, the name you gave it when you first set it up or that came as part of the default setup. In our instance, it's PRESTONSERVER. Now at a command line, issue the ping command, followed by the name of your home server, like this:
ping PRESTONSERVER
The results will look something like this:
C:\Users\Preston>ping PRESTONSERVER
Pinging PRESTONSERVER [192.168.1.103] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.103: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.103: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.103: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.103: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.103:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
Note the IP number after the router name. That's your router's IP address on your network. Write it down; you'll need it to configure port forwarding. In this case, it's 192.168.1.103.
Next, you'll need to tell your router to forward all connections from ports 80, 443 and 4125 to the IP address 192.168.1.103. In the Linksys WRT54GX4, log into your administrator's screen. Choose Applications & Gaming --> Port Range Forwarding. Fill in the form you see, as shown in the nearby figure. For the application name, use something like Home Server; it doesn't really matter what name you give it. For the first line, in both Start and End, type in 80 and select BOTH from the drop-down list. For IP address, type in 103 at the end. Check the Enable box. Do the same for two more lines, one for port 443 and one for port 4125. Click Save Settings. You're done; port forwarding will now work.
Once you've done that, head back to your Windows Home Server Console, to the Remote Access Settings screen outlined earlier in this article and finish configuring remote access, by clicking Setup next to Domain Name.
Now follow the normal instructions for getting remote access to WHS and controlling any PC on your network. The nearby figure shows a PC being controlled via WHS remote connection.
One final note
If the internal IP address of your WHS changes for any reason, you'll have to reconfigure port forwarding, using the new IP address. Why would the IP address change? If you restart your router, for example, the IP address will change. To get around this problem, you might want to assign your WHS a static IP address. For details on how to assign a static IP address to a computer, see your computer's documentation.
Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com, and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works.
Copyright © 2007 IDG. All rights reserved.