Setting up WSE2016 to replace WHS2011

flowrider99

flowrider99

flowrider99

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I am in the early stages of evaluating Windows Server Essentials 2016. My existing Windows Home Sever 2011 is no longer supported or getting Microsoft updates so a change is required. So far I have installed the OS, setup an admin user, setup a couple of standard users, setup disk pooling, setup some shared folders and eventually got remote desktop working. I've done everything within the dashboard and only used Server Manager to fix RDP issue.

During installation I setup a domain in name only and have had no further contact with domains or active directory setup and im hoping this continues but I haven't connected any devices yet so this will be interesting. I have found a registry change from Microsoft that you run on the client PC before installing the connector that tells the PC not to join the domain or use the server for DNS, apparantly this doesn't stop the PC from being automatically backed up and doesn't stop the PC from using the shares on the server. Seems very WHS2011 like! Has anyone any experience with using WSE2016 as a home server without getting involved with domain etc? Any tips would be welcome before I do any damage!

Thanks
 
My issue with domains might just be my lack of understanding how they work and what effects they have on my PC's. Same with active directory.

I found some info by Microsoft about setting up the server to operate in a workgroup rather than a domain but I needed to make the changes during setup and can now only make the change by doing a clean reinstall. I might still do that as part of my testing.
 
Thanks for your reply but I don't want anything to interfere with local accounts. We have 4 PC's on the network all with local accounts. I also don't want the WSE server to deal with DNS as my router does that already and I am happy with that arrangement, it just works and if the router goes down then Internet access is down anyway.

Do you know what configuring the server as a "member server" actually means. Microsoft documents appear to indicate that a "member server" is not part of a domain.
 
Thanks again. I think I will setup a temporary account on a spare PC and see what happens but I don't want all my files moved to the server as the server will be setup to go to sleep (like my existing server) when I don't want to use it also being the DNS will cause issues for our smartphones and tablets accessing the internet when the server is sleeping. I think I need to play a bit more with it.

A way around the DNS issue is to use the Microsoft provided regedit option........ "SkipAutoDNSServerDetection" (client-side), or "SkipAutoDnsConfig" (server-side), registry setting to turn off its "DNS auto-detect and configure"
 
Today I installed the WSE connector on the test PC. The install process basically looks like a new Windows10 install process asking lots of very similar questions but when the install completed my test documents in the "documents" folder were gone! Not what I was expecting as they were gone for good!

Next step is to do the following registry change and then install the WSE connector again.

Reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Server\ClientDeployment" /v SkipDomainJoin /t REG_DWORD /d 1

My reason for the server sleeping is because most of the time its not being used.

Update.... I can now sign in either with a local account or a domain account so my files are preserved, I wonder if I could have done that before?
 
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Quartz said:
I think you will find that you created a new user. Take a look in \users and you should see a folder called USERNAME.DOMAINNAME.
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Yes, I see both the user i setup plus the new user that WSE automatically setup. I would have thought that if I logged in with an existing user name that WSE wouldn't create another user with the same name other than the domain name on the end.
 
flowrider99 said:
Thanks again. I think I will setup a temporary account on a spare PC and see what happens but I don't want all my files moved to the server as the server will be setup to go to sleep (like my existing server) when I don't want to use it also being the DNS will cause issues for our smartphones and tablets accessing the internet when the server is sleeping. I think I need to play a bit more with it.

A way around the DNS issue is to use the Microsoft provided regedit option........ "SkipAutoDNSServerDetection" (client-side), or "SkipAutoDnsConfig" (server-side), registry setting to turn off its "DNS auto-detect and configure"
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Its occurred to me that even with the server managing DNS my other devices won't be affected as they won't have the client connector installed. I can also add an alternative DNS on the client PC, in this case my router provides the alternative DNS
 
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My test client PC seems to be working with WSE2016 without being a member of the domain. To get this working I did the regedit "SkipDomainJoin" (only required for W10 Pro clients, W10 Home does not support domains by default), installed the WSE client connector, deleted the domain user account that the connector setup and changed the primary DNS on the client PC from the server back to my router.

I still have all my files and folders on the client PC intact but I now also have a shared folder icon on the client PC desktop which gives me access to the WSE shares. I cant see the WSE server in File Explorer devices but that isn't a problem as the shares are accessible via the desktop icon. Client backup still works as well. A bonus that I wasn't expecting is that the client PC logs into the WSE client connector automatically.

I have done everything using the WSE dashboard, I have not done anything in Server Manager.

So initial impressions are that with a few small extra steps I can replace my WHS2011 with WSE2016 and it all works the same.

Now I must say that I am no expert in Windows server software so have I missed anything? Has anyone else had the same experience. I was expecting, based on internet articles, a much more difficult transition from WHS to WSE.
 
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Now that I am happy with the evaluation of WSE2016 my thoughts have turned to the server hardware. At the moment my WHS2011 runs on desktop hardware (ASRock H77 Pro4 M mobo, Intel i3-3220 cpu and 8gb ram). I think this hardware should be ok, maybe with a ram upgrade to 16gb, but now is the time to upgrade if I'm going too. Is it worth upgrading to say a B460/B560 mobo with a gen 10/11 Intel CPU?
 
Quartz said:
WSE 2016 will handle 64 GB RAM and as many cores as you can throw at it. I suggest you look at an older Xeon system. Something like a Xeon E5-2683 v4 will give you 16 cores and 32 threads for under £200 with a motherboard costing a similar amount.

Hell, you could have a dual Epyc system with 128 cores / 256 threads - but only 64 GB RAM.
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Thanks but thats way to much power for something that will only be a file server and handle client backups. I might just buy an extra 8gb ram to give me 16gb and upgrade the cpu to an i5 or i7, if I can find one secondhand.
 
A small issue.......

Yesterday I installed a new hdd to the server, I formated it and added it to the shared pool (I'm using Stablebit Drivepool). When I booted the server I had no access to the server via my test pc and when loading the server dashboard there were no users or devices listed. The server had raised an alert about the wsemngtsvc not successfully starting but I was unable to manually start the service and all the configuration and dependencies were OK. Went online for some ideas none of which worked so I decided to recover from a previous image but still no access and no users or devices. Finally I uninstalled the hdd, rebooted the server and the failing service now loads ok. Appears the issue was caused by the new hdd but I have installed the hdd in another pc with no issues and it tests OK, further online investigation is needed on how to add new storage to the server.
 
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therealdippy said:
Thanks - that's critical for me too. Ideally I'd like to avoid hacks so looks like I'll use WSE 2016.

Another question has anyone bought one of these cheap OS keys which loads of places seem to be selling apparently legally?
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I'm sure you have figured out by now that the cheap keys are not legal.

In the end I decided that WSE2016 was too complex for me to manage, and the tiresome hacks needed around domains when, when all I wanted was somewhere to backup my PC's too and use as a file server so I now have a Windows10 "server" and installed Stablebit Scanner and Stablebit Drivepool on it. I then just share the required folders with my client PC's and use the free edition of Macrium Reflect for backups to one of the shared folders on the W10 server.
 
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therealdippy said:
Hi @flowrider99, timely reply because I am just completing my evaluation of WSE2016. Yes I realised that the keys are dodgy, but I also see that a legal license costs more than one for WSE2019 so I'll probably take a gamble with them.

I have found WSE2016 relatively easy to set up, I only needed one hack for the client connector. The other issue was some of the errors including the ones from the BPA which I have been researching - I fixed what needed to be fixed and excluded the others. Whilst I agree that it is far more than I need, and certainly more than WHS2011, getting it working as a file and backup server has been straightforward and all that I need. I didn't have any issue with the domain controller part.

But if I have any trouble with getting a key to work then maybe I'll go the same route as you...
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I managed to setup the WSE server but the ongoing maintenance was to much for me, error messages kept popping up and I didn't have the necessary knowledge to know whatv was relevant or not.

There is a 180 day evaluation key that can be re-activated up to 5 times so effectively a 900 day license.
 
Quartz said:
Huh? What is complex about it?

Anyway, I am contemplating Server 2022 (because I've borked WSUS) and applying the WSEE above, but I'm struggling to see how to get a non-evaluation ISO without a MSDN account. Or will the eval version become non-eval with a valid license key?
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I guess if you have the knowledge then WSE2016 isn't complex but I don't and I wasn't interested in spending loads of time finding out when Windows10 would do everything I needed and I knew how to set it up.
 
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