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[JimH]

Via engadget.com

Microsoft today updated KB 946676 which is the Knowledge Base article covering the Windows Home Server data corruption bug. This bug causes data to be corrupted when you try to edit certain files directly on the home server within certain applications.

As well as fixing the original publication date of the article, worrying, Microsoft state that customers have reported data corruption occurring with a growing list of applications. I guess they have a responsibility to report the full list of issues reported - however, according to the article Microsoft have only reproduced the bug on certain applications within that list.

Full article at wegotserved.co.uk

[park]

Would that affect standard media documents? All I plan on transferring at the moment are all my mp3s, photos, and ripped videos.

I read the microsoft article and it seemed to be saying that only some advanced file types such as those it uses for it's office suite would be affected.

[newsposter]

data is data and bits are bits.  It shouldn't matter one whit to the server what the file extension is?

Unless, and this is only rumor at this point, that MSFT has some sort of DRM 'enforcement' code built in to WHS that, if it can't verify license-free or license-valid, will kill a file dead.

[ThoBar]

Time to start examing that Linux / MAC port more closely?

[park]

I've just got my mac pro. The first thing I did was install windows on it, so that I can still use MC. I think that windows ultimate is reasonable. It all went incredibly smoothly.  Much more smoothly than when I got my sony vaio TP1 living room PC. Home premium (japanese) on that thing sucked royally. Couldn't change the interface language. Couldnt turn of UAC easily. It gave me so many messages every time it started up I wanted to throw it out the window.

The mac interface is defnitely a pleasure to use though. It's quick and easy to get to all settings and change languages etc. Firefox looks better than it does on vista. The dock is nice.

I was hoping that apple would release a good home server product, but was disappointed to see that last base station thing they released. The thing that sold me on WHS was the way you can add to the storage pool whenever you like and not worry about drive letters. That and NTFS, which i think is better at handling double byte characters in filenames than the terastation's file system. Also, and I might be mistaken, but I feel safer knowing that all my data is duplicated and in two places, rather than distributed through the cheap raid 5 setup that my terastation had.

Now I have grossly gone off topic. Sorry about that.

[dwaynel]

It's fine for storing your media files. The data corruption bug is really to do with editing (large) files in duplicated shares on the server over a period of time.  For example, quicken databases, and other examples within the KB article.

I've been happily using WHS since early betas,  and also using the WHS server as an MC12 library server.  I have some 380GB of MP3's managed by it, flawlessly.  I also have my library stored on it in duplicated folders, and it's been fine so far (running for several weeks now).  I use it both as a shared library, and as a library server.  I must admit, I haven't done a whole lot of editing of the library, however.

Microsoft have stuffed up the way they have implemented their Disk Extender technology, which is why this data corruption bug exists.  I actually suspected this might happen with some of the early betas.  It will be interesting to see how they fix it.

Dwayne

[park]

I have searched the net for info on installing software on a server, and this link helped me to understand it a bit:
http://www.deciphered.net/blog/2007/04/25/howto_install_utorrent_service_windows_home_server_whs_ctp

I wonder if all the steps are the same for installing MC's media server though. Do I need to create a new user on the WHS and add MC media server to the startup programs? Do I need to/can I install it as a service? How do you get the library to refresh? Do you have to keep remote desktopping in and closing/reopening it?

I looked at the media server part of the wiki, but it doesn't go into much detail.

Help appreciated.

[JimH]

Did you try MC's new Portable Install?  It's in the Custom section of the install.  It won't encode and some visualizations won't work, but it would work fine for playing media.  It's designed for installing to a flash drive or other portable drive, then running from a Windows PC.

[park]

Would it be better to install that on the WHS than the regular install?

When Media server is running on a server (using a shared library), does it automatically open the library in read only mode or is that something I have to set?

Thanks,
Brian

[mesue]

I have my music stored on a WHS, with duplication enabled, using MC as my music manager, and no problems with corruption. I don't do major tag editing on the server files, but I do make occasional changes to ratings, adding reviews and cover art, etc. When I add new music to my library, I do the preliminary tagging on a local drive and then move it to the server before adding cover art. I did keep the library on the server for a while, but eventually moved it back to a local drive because I think it is slightly faster. Anyway... no corruption problems... knock on wood.

When Media server is running on a server (using a shared library), does it automatically open the library in read only mode or is that something I have to set?

Brian: I played around with running MC on my server for a while. It will open in read-only mode if the library is already open somewhere else, or you can use a command line switch to open it read-only. The problem is that the library does not refresh when external changes are made. If it weren't for that, it would work really well, but I have not come up with a reliable way to refresh the read-only library unattended.

Here is a thread I started with some more info: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=44326.0