Top Add-Ins for Windows Home Server

I did a review a few years ago of Windows Home Server. At the time it was fresh out of Microsoft and didn’t have everything that made it worth getting. Microsoft had apparently taken Windows Small Business Server 2003, stripped out some features and added the Home Server Software.

As many of us are either IT personnel or love computers, why use a stripped-down OS? Microsoft had made it easy to do everything you can do with a home server and still offered a ton of features, all for $100. It was Microsoft’s first attempt at putting a server in people’s homes. It can be installed on an old machine you may have replaced.

As I mentioned in the intro, if what the original Windows Home Server could do was reasonably useful, today's version is downright impressive. Keep reading for some of the things you will definitely want to make your machine even more efficient and capable.  

Power Packs

Microsoft has added a ton of features to Windows Home Server. They release new features in updates called Power Packs. These are completely different from the SBS Server OS Service Packs. Microsoft has kept up and continues to add features though the OS is getting old.

I highly recommend that everyone get these Power Packs. They can be downloaded through Windows Updates. You many need to install and reboot for the other updates to install before you even see the Power Packs.

The first Power Pack brought a fix to the nasty data corruption bug, and added a few useful capabilities, like enhanced remote access. Thankfully they added 64-bit support for their connector.

If you are installing WHS for the first time and don’t have a version with Power Pack 1 installed, do that before you move any data to the home server. The data corruption bug could cause all your data to be lost.

Power Pack 2 brought some other great features. Most of them were designed for Media Center users and those who use extenders. While it wasn’t as big of a release as Power Pack 1, it was definitely welcome. When it was paired with Vista’s Media Center, it brought the Media Center to a new level.

Finally, Power Pack 3 was recently released. It focused more on Windows 7 features. It better manages Windows 7 computers and does some things specifically for Windows 7, like add the shares to the libraries automatically.

Add-Ins

One of the key selling points of Windows Home Server was the ability to have Add-Ins and the ability to easily create Add-Ins and integrate many Home Server features into them. They can add many new features to your home server and allow you to get more out of it. I’ve been using Windows Home Server for a while; here are some of my favorite Add-Ins.

Whiist

The first one I’d like to tell you about is whiist. It helps you manage your iis and provides you with the ability to create your own websites and add links to your main home server website. If you ever want to expand your website on your home server, this is a must.

You can quickly add sites like a photo gallery in seconds. You can host blogs and websites through your WHS Console. You can add links to your favorite sites, like devhardware.com, to your home server home page.

You can’t customize the main WHS site except for the picture on the page. It merely adds more sites to your main site. If you wish to modify that home page, you will be on your own.

P80

This is another add-in that focuses on remote access. This add-in gives you the ability to check the status of your home server, such as services running, health status, shares and their sizes, and much more. You have to log on to your home server’s website to view them, securing this data. It is great for managing your home server while away. It’s great to be able to check the status of your hard drives to see if they are healthy or not.

Advanced Admin Console

This one doesn’t add any new features to the Home Server, but it does add features to the console. It brings Window Home Server’s OS-level Administrative Console to the Home Serve Console.

While this can easily be done by remoting into the machine, this add-in allows you to do it from the Home Server console. The advantage to this is that you can access the Home Server Console from your Home Server website.

So if you happen to be on the road and need to access something, such as the registry, you can. You can access it from anywhere you can get an Internet connection. There's no need to set up a VPN connection to do this anymore. 

Drive Labeler

This one is simple and doesn’t bring a lot to the table, but I have found it to be really handy. Drive Labeler breaks down your space use by hard drive and what is on each drive; in other words, what items are taking up x amount of space and where. 

This helps me manage how much space backups take. If I see backups taking up too much space on the server, I can cut back on the numbers that are saved each week. It also quickly allows me to see whether or not all my hard drives are healthy and operating perfectly; that's a very important bit of information on file servers. 

uTorrent

This add-in brings uTorrent’s WebUI to the Home Server Console. It makes it easier to manage torrents by letting your manage them in the same place you manage your home server and network. You need to have uTorrent installed to make this add-in work. I manage all my files on my home server, and not my netbook, due to the server being always on and lack of space on the netbook. I can remotely pause, stop, or cancel torrents as I need.

Fireplay

This one isn’t just for WHS, but it's a great add-in that brings a much-needed feature to your server. If you don’t know what Firefly is, it’s an application that allows you to stream music over your network. Fireplay is an extension of this to allow you to stream it through the Internet. It can be used with Windows Media Player as well as the ever popular iTunes.

When you are out and about, you can even reach a music player through your browser and listen to your music wherever you are. Don’t forget to take into account your upstream bandwidth. It takes a lot to get quality music to stream to your remote location. This is one of my favorite add-ins, and something Microsoft should have built in a long time ago.

Web Folders 4 WHS

If you have ever used the remote connection to upload or download files from your server, you have realized the method leaves is a lot to be desired. You must select files and folders to download. What Web Folders 4 WHS allows you to do is more efficiently manage your shares away from your home. It enables a more Explorer-like environment. This means you can simply drag and drop files into and out of your shares.

Photo Sync

This one allows you to automatically upload your pictures to Flickr. The best part is that it syncs automatically without you to tell it to. Now that people have ditched film and take exclusively digital pictures, many have their whole lives of pictures on computers. A home server is a great idea to keep and manage all your pictures, but what if it goes down, or gets stolen? Having them all backed up to an offsite location gives a certain peace of mind. I see this add-in exploding in the near future. Additional services besides Flickr would make this all the hotter.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed the many ways you can expand your Windows Home Server to do so much more than it could do when it was released years ago. Microsoft has really kept up with support and added features to WHS throughout the years. Their most recent release adds support and features for Windows 7.

If you wish to still further expand what your WHS can do, there are tons of programs out there to help you do this. Microsoft created WHS with the idea that ordinary people could create their own add-ins. They make it super simple to create and add in programs to your WHS. I have found some of the best ones I like to use and shared them with you. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

If you want an add in and can’t seem to find anything that will work, you can always create your own. If you have any favorite ones that I missed, please feel free to let us know. The more add-ins, the more features we can get out of our WHS.