Comments on: Combining Vista Media Centre & a Virtual Windows Home Server

By: Brendon Davis

Brendon Davis — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:42:36 +0000

Hey Paul,

I have got PP3 running on the WHS at home now, The copy of files from MCE to the WHS is great. I have reduced the MCE system disk to a total of 300GB. Play back from the Atom WHS over the 802.11n Wireless is great.

Even viewing of files from the WHS is not effected by uploads, it looks to be using BITS or something to control upload speed. Likewise, when the MCE has all 4 tuners running, I don’t see any impact from uploads.

The unexpected benefit is being able to watch my recordings from the HP NetBook or Desktop PC about 20min after a show finishes recording.

If your interested, check out my configurations at http://brendon.davis.to/mywhs/ or http://brendon.davis.to/mymce/

By: knoworange

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By: VMware Workstation 6.5 ACE

VMware Workstation 6.5 ACE — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:01:27 +0000

VMware Workstation 6.5 ACE …

The time came to decommission the Home Server once I realised how much power it was pulling. My pow [...]…

By: mmx

mmx — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:23:34 +0000

I think the better way is to run Vista inside WHS, not the other way around.

This way, you can use physical disk for storage and performance is greatly improved.

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:09:16 +0000

I’d like to do something very similar to this – ie. Running Vista Media Center as the main OS while running WHS in virtualization, but I have a few questions before I purchase that hardware. I’m looking at doing it with a pretty beefy small form factor system, using a Phenom 9450e w/ 4GB of RAM, if that matters:

1. I’d like to use MyMovies for WHS to automatically rip Blu-Ray and DVD movies without any user input, which I think is one of the great WHS features going for it. Will the system be able to accomplish this under virtualization?

2. I’m also planning on serving this Blu-Ray content to to other VMC machines. One in my bedroom, and the base machine (that is, the one also running WHS via virtualization) and watching it there, as well as an Xbox 360 working as an extender in my living room. Can this be done under virtualization as well? I know the Xbox 360 won’t play hosted Blu-Ray content, but I believe it will play served DVDs via Transcode 360, so as long as it’ll do that, I’m happy.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Jay

By: Jase McCarty

Jase McCarty — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:29:51 +0000

Regarding the sluggish console access… Keep in mind that WHS is built on a Windows 2003 foundation. Make sure that you set video hardware acceleration to Full.

That should help out with the console sluggishness.

Cheers,
Jase

By: Home Media Data Center Project: VMC + WHS Combined | eHomeUpgrade

Home Media Data Center Project: VMC + WHS Combined | eHomeUpgrade — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:18:15 +0000

[...] 3: New how-to guide using VMWare Workstation 6.5 posted December 4, [...]

By: Combining Virtual Windows Home Server & Vista Media Centre

Combining Virtual Windows Home Server & Vista Media Centre — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:59:30 +0000

[...] Full Article [...]

By: maciek

maciek — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:44:57 +0000

Hello,
I’ve got dual setup too. Using Vista 32bit TVP as host and WHS PP1 on VMWare Server 2. The hardware is ABIT AB9PRO (9xSATA), Intel Q6600, 4GB RAM (3,2GB seen by Vista).
Hard Drives:
VISTA: 40GB PATA for ststem; 160GB SATA for Recorded TV;
WHS: 140GB virtual drive on 160SATA disk; 480GB virtual drive on 500GB SATA drive;
Another hardware: 2xHVR1300,2xFloppyDTV,Z-WAVE emiter, Silverstone LC-16M, Power Suply BeQuiet 300W, 2xNIC on board
The performace is OK for me. two network cards help a lot. Heating vs. Quiet is a little problem for me but replacing cooler will help.

By: Media Center plus Windows Home Server on one machine | Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise |

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:39:17 +0000

[...] Young has an interesting description of his experiment running Windows Home Server in a virtual machine on a system that’s also serving as a full-time Media Center. It’s an [...]