11 replies to this topic

[siteexperts]

Is it possible (I know it is not supported) to promote WHS 2011 to a domain controller?

I am currently running windows server with a VHD for WHS 1.0. When I upgrade, I am considering eliminating the VHD and hosting WHS directly.

Thanks.

[Terry (WGS)]

Why not just get Windows SBS 2011 Essentials? It's WHS + AD support.

[siteexperts]

What are the differences between SBS 2011 Essentials and Home Server?


I could not find a comparison chart. Are all the backup, remote access, and media features also available in SBS? If so, I will definitely go that route.

[yodafett]

Here is the snapshot from tomontech

Windows Home Server 2011
User Limit 10 Users
Computer Limit 10 Computers
CPU Socket Support 1 CPU Socket
Maximum Supported RAM 8 GB RAM
Domain Join? None
Data Sheet Click Here


Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials
User Limit 25 Users
Computer Limit 25 Computers
CPU Socket Support 2 CPU Sockets
Maximum Supported RAM 32 GB RAM
Domain Join? Domain Controller
Data SheetClick Here


Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials
User Limit 25 Users
Computer Limit 25 Computers
CPU Socket Support1 CPU Socket
Maximum Supported RAM 8 GB RAM
Domain Join? Yes
Data Sheet Click Here

[Terry (WGS)]

You won't get the media features (Silverlight streaming, Media Center archiving & Homegroup Support) as they're considered consumer, rather than business features. That said, there are plenty of media server apps for Windows which you can use instead. Remote Access and Client backup are in, as is AD support.

On balance, it's probably easier to replicate the media features in SBSE, rather than try to hack in AD support in WHS.

[RichTJ99]

Terry,

I am pretty new but I am considering SBS 2011 E instead of WHS mainly to have some extra features for expansion ( I love adding virtual machines for testing purpose & I could see hitting 10 pretty quick).

When you say that SBSE doesnt have: Silverlight streaming, Media Center archiving & Homegroup Support, what does that mean?


Thanks,
Rich

[Terry (WGS)]

Silverlight streaming - WHS 2011 has an integrated Silverlight-based media player than can stream music and video on the local network and remotely via a web browser.

Media Center archiving - Media Center PCs connected to WHS 2011 can automatically archive their Recorded TV folders to the home server and play back recorded TV seamlessly as if the files were stored on the local PC.

Homegroup Support - WHS 2011 integrates neatly with Windows 7 Homegroups, allowing you to quickly build libraries of content across multiple PCs in the home.

Terry

[siteexperts]

I already have a domain controller running WHS v1 is a VM. I was hoping to consolidate this down to a single O/S instance.

We do use the windows media archival feature and my movies in windows home server. Anyone know if my movies works on SBS?


I assume it may be simpler just to run whs 2011 in the VM on my existing domain controller. The lack domain join is a pain but I have already been working around it.


If I go this route, I assume I should set-up RAID across my data hard-drives and then expose the RAID'ed drives to the VM.

[PR.]

I did try a dcpromo when I was testing WHS2011 because I was curious to see what would happen and... it said that the server can't run as a domain controller under this SKU, or similar.

Wouldn't surprise me if you could tweak some files to make it work though.

[GregLatiak]

I used to serve movies from my SBS2003 server and will be doing so with SBS2011Essentials. It is just data -- the problem I ran into with the Microsoft media serving tools is that they worked for specific encoding formats and pretended the others were not there. So if I had a bunch of movies in DIVX, for example, Windows Media would ignore them even though it had a decoder add-on so could play them if forced. With a small number of users and a gigabit wired network there doesn't seem to be an issue -- just weirdness of what the Windows media services see. So I ignore the media features and just serve data -- to players on PCs or my PopcornHour media player.

[DeaconFrost]

Is SBS2011 capable of "hosting" movie files so that an Xbox 360 can play them? Right now I rip my DVDs to my WHS 1.0 box and play them in my living room via my 360.

[Drashna Jaelre (WGS)]

Check out Serviio.