Windows Home Server - Backing Up
2 August 2007In my earlier post, I described how to install Windows Home Server. Now comes the really interesting part. We will backup a system running Microsoft Windows XP to the Windows Home Server which is on the same network as Windows XP.
You just need to have Windows Home Server RC - Connector Software on your client system i.e., Windows XP in our case. This software is included in the Windows Home Server package which you have downloaded earlier.
Let’s proceed with the installation of this software.
Extract Windows Home Server RC - Connector Software.iso to a temporary directory.
Run SETUP.EXE from the extracted directory.
A dialog box will be opened up which displays “Welcome to the Windows Home Server Connector!”. It briefly summarizes what all you can do by connecting to Windows Home Server.
Press Next to continue.
You’ll be presented with License Agreement dialog box. Accept the terms and press Next.
The installation proceeds and the progress bar is displayed.
Then the wizard searches for Windows Home Server on the Network. The assumption here is that both the Windows XP and Windows Home Server are on the same LAN.
Once the Windows Home Server is detected, a dialog box is presented which asks you to enter the password to connect to the Windows Home Server. This password was set when we installed the Windows Home Server earlier.
Enter the password and press Next.
Now Windows XP will be configured by connecting to Windows Home Server and also backup configuration will be done. A dialog box displays the status of these two activities.
Now press Next to continue.
A final confirmation will be displayed which indicates the backup timings for this computer.
An icon will be created on the quick launch. Right click this and select Windows Home Server Console.
Login screen for Windows Home Server will be displayed. Enter the password and press the arrow button beside it.
The progress bar will be shown while the connection gets established.
Now, the Windows Home Server Console will be displayed. The window has multitude of options.
First, the top section displays a number of tabs like Computers & Backup, User Accounts, Shared Folders, Server Storage, Network Healthy. At the right end Settings and Help tabs are placed.
Below this, there is an area where you configure,view backups, start backup or remove the computer from Windows Home Server.
The bottom area which is the largest one displays the computers which are connected to Windows Home Server. Here you can see your computer name, its status, the operating system it runs etc.
Once you select your computer, then you can view its backups, configure backup etc by selecting the buttons from the mid-area as described earlier.
Let’s add an account on Windows Home Server.
Press the User Accounts button from the top-area. There will be a default user named Guest.
Now press the Add button.
Enter the First Name, Last Name and logon name. Select Enable Remote Access for this user and press Next.
Enter and confirm Password and then press Next
The folders that will be shared will be displayed. By default Full Control is provided. You can customize these. Then press the Finish button.
The summary of the tasks performed will be displayed. Now press the Done button.
You can see that a new user is added and will be displayed just below the Guest user.
Now that you have created an account, you can use this account to access the shared folders on the Windows Home Server.
A shortcut named Shared Folders on Server was placed on your Desktop when you connected your computer to Windows Home Server. Click this shortcut.
A dialog box will be presented which asks you to enter your credentials.
Enter the username and password(which you created while adding account on Windows Home Server) and press OK.
The shared folders on the Windows Home Server will be displayed.
Now that we have added an account for ourselves, lets proceed to create backup of our system.
Login to Windows Home Server Console and select your computer. Now press the Configure Backup button from the mid-area.
A Welcome dialog box will be displayed. Press Next to proceed.
Only NTFS filesystems can be backed up. Select the Volumes you want to backup and press Next.
By default few folders are excluded from backup which include temporary files, recycle bin, shadow folders etc. Press Next to continue.
A final confirmation dialog will be displayed which mentions the backup time, and estimated backup size.
Press Done.
What we have done in previous steps is that we have only configured automatic backup for our system. Let’s now proceed with actually backing up the system.
To manually backup your system, right click the Windows Home Server icon in the quick launch and press Backup Now…
A dialog box named Backup Now will appear. Enter a descriptive name for your backup and then press the button Backup Now.
The icon in the quick launch will change its color and a dialog box named Backup Status will be displayed which indicates the progress of the backup.
It will take time around 30min-1hour which again depends upon the size of your volume.
Once the backup is completed, a dialog box indicates that it is done. You can hide the dialog box by pressing the Hide button.
Now you can observe the status in the Windows Home Server Console against your computer which shows as backed-up.
When you select your computer in the console and press the View Backups button, the backup details are displayed.
When you press the Details button, additional details regarding backups will be displayed which includes the duration it took for backing-up.
Now that your system is backed up you should take some care regarding backing up drivers. When your system gets corrupted and you need to restore it from your backups, you need to have the necessary drivers to find your backup. This includes drivers for hard disk and network driver. Now would be the right time to copy your drivers from the Windows Home Server backup to a USB disk for future care.
These are stored in the “Windows Home Server Drivers for Restore” folder on the Windows Home Server. You can access this folder by viewing your backup once you’ve made it.
What we have done is we have backed-up our system in case we may need it. Watch this space for my next post in which I’ll cover how to restore a corrupted installation.
Till then, happy backing-up.
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