LiveSide - News blog : Windows Home Server

Forcing Live Mesh on Windows Server: it works!

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:10:04 GMT

A post this weekend on msdn blogs from Yazan Rantawi explains how to get Live Mesh running on a Windows Server, and I just set it up with my Windows Home Server (which is Windows Server 2003 under the hood). So far it seems to be working just fine. Here’s what you do:

Log in to your server (through Remote desktop, not the WHS interface), launch Internet Explorer, and browse to www.mesh.com. Sign in with your Live ID
Add a device (you should be given the 32/64bit choice, make sure), and save (don’t run) LiveMesh.exe to somewhere easy to get to on your server (c:\downloads, let’s say)
Turn off UAC if you are running Windows Server 2008 – you will be able to turn it on again after you install (more on the blog post)
Again, for Windows Server 2008, reboot after turning off UAC (note: this is only necessary for Windows Server 2008, which has UAC)
Now, from RUN, start cmd.exe, and navigate to the folder you have LiveMesh.exe in
type in LiveMesh.exe /force, and hit enter
Live Mesh will install normally.

Some screenshots:

I had no trouble with this, and a quick test has everything working well. As usual, no guarantees that this doesn’t mess up Windows Home Server (or any server), so proceed at your own risk.

One note on WHS, trying to “meshify” a shared folders from the Shared Folders link on the desktop won’t work. But, just navigate to your shares folder (d:/shares on my machine) and enable Live Mesh from there (right click on the folder, “Add folder to Live Mesh”). After that, you will be able to get to synched files from the Shared Folders link on WHS or your WHS enabled machines.

Windows Live FolderShare Beta - there is still hope

Chris — Mon, 28 May 2007 18:47:00 GMT

Looks like there is a ray of hope for those FolderShare users who've been out in the cold since Microsoft's acquisiton of ByteTaxi back at the end of the 2005. Apart from a partial rebrand to Windows Live, there hasn't been much to get exicted about, but that may be about to change.

A new FolderShare page on feedback.live.com and a public foldershare newsgroup with some activity shows that FolderShare is getting some attention internally, suggesting that it may be a questions of when, not if, there is a new beta build.

To recap:

"FolderShare is a Windows Live Service that allows people to share their files with their friends, family & co-workers, and synchronize files across multiple devices. People can also access their files from anywhere on the web."

So how does this compare to Microsoft's other known storage products?
- Windows Live FolderShare provides remote access to files via a web browser and also synching capabilities similar to that of Messenger's Shared Folders.
- Windows Live Folders is a cloud storage service, allowing you to store your files at a Microsoft datacenter thereby providing access to your files even if your home PC is turned off.
- Windows Home Server provides remote access to files via a web browser and mapped drive access if you are on the same network

You can try out FolderShare at www.foldershare.com.

Windows Live to play a role in Windows Home Server?

Harrison Hoffman — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:33:00 GMT

Bill Gates announced a new product named Windows Home Server at his CES keynote tonight. The concept is that you can store all of the data throughout your house on your own personal server, accessible from anywhere in the world. Well, as it turns out, it looks like Windows Live will play a role in the sharing of this data.

I had picked up on this via the revamped version of Microsoft's Digital Amnesia site earlier, but now that Brandon LeBlanc has already jumped on the story, I figured that I needed to get going! As Brandon noted, the Home Server Fact Sheet stated you will have a "Personalized Internet address from Windows Live™ with no monthly service fees." Alright, well that's definitely interesting. Stop Digital Amnesia also adds "Even give restricted access to your friends and family through your free, customizable Windows Live website." The latter statement definitely implies that this may be more than a simple interface for pulling down your files on any computer. It may very well end up being a rich experience, complete with customizable options to make it easier to access your most important information and content....or maybe I'm just wishing. Either way, Windows Live will play some part in it. I am going to follow up on it, see what I can dig up, and let you all know about what could shape up to be a very exciting development for Windows Live.

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