Introduction

A few weeks ago I wiped my Windows XP 64-bit box and installed Windows Home Server (WHS) on it. I have been running Windows XP 64-bit as my home server for a year but the features in WHS made it a compelling upgrade. In the next few weeks I am going to post a detailed review of WHS Power Pack 3 and how it is the ultimate home server.

One of the best features of WHS is the backup. At home I have over a half a dozen computers keeping and keeping them all backed up can be a pain. I tried Windows OneCare, the built in Windows Backup, and Acronis but none of them never lived up to the “set and forget” I wanted.

Once you install WHS, you then install a tiny agent on each computer and then each day that computer will backup to WHS over the network. If any computer does not backup you get notifications that it did not backup. WHS will even wake up the computer at night and backup the computer then put the computer back to sleep.

The Crisis

So one morning I woke up and my main development computer would not boot. The PNPCLASS.SYS had become corrupt for whatever reason, which meant that the computer would not even boot in safe mode. So after troubleshooting and diagnosing for a bit, I decided to try the restore from WHS, which I had never done before.

The Solution 

On a separate laptop I made a WHS Recovery CD, which resides in the WHS Software folder as an ISO. This CD was used to boot the “dead” computer. When the CD booted the computer, it found the network card (got an IP via DHCP), located the WHS on the network, and determined the name of the “dead” computer. If WHS does not find your network card it gives you the option to load a network card driver. The Recovery software told me the last backup was at 12:47AM, and it was 8:40 AM, so the computer was backed and I would lose nothing if the restore worked. So I hit Restore, it whirled away for a bit, then the computer rebooted.

It actually rebooted and has been working for 2 weeks without a hiccup. What made PNPCLASS.SYS die? I don’t know but WHS made it super easy to get a machine back up and running quickly.

Note: WHS when backing up your computers it only appends the deltas each night, so after the initial backup, each night’s backup is very quick. As I keep all my files on the WHS anyways my machines backup quickly every night.

Stay tuned for more WHS updates.