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New: WHSv1 iTunes Installer - free tool to help install iTunes on WHS v1 without Orca!

Filed under iHomeServer , iHomeServer 2 , iTunes

Many users will know that trying to install iTunes on Windows Home Server v1 can be a pain - they will usually be met with an error saying that the Apple Mobile Support requires Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher which aborts the whole installation.

There are many posts on many forums which give detailed instructions on how to get around this by using Orca to edit the Apple MSIs and remove the installation launch conditions.

We have put together a small free tool that automates this into a single click. Once you have downloaded the "WHS iTunes Installer", you will be asked to point the tool to the iTunes Setup file you downloaded from the Apple Web Site (iTunesSetup.exe). The tool will then start the installation and remove the Service Pack 2 condition on-the-fly when required. There is also support for upgrades, if you use the Apple Software Updater to download iTunes instead.

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How to use iHomeServer with network drives or DriveBender disk pools

Filed under iHomeServer , iTunes , Windows Home Server

We have had quite a few users recently who have been unable to get iHomeServer to index content on network drives or local DriveBender storage pools.  The symptoms of this are that you can add and view files in iTunes that are stored on a remote / network or DriveBender drive when you are running iTunes interactively, however, when you run iTunes via iHomeServer then you can no longer add new content and existing content may not be available within iTunes.  Some users have also had problems seeing cover art and other metadata when they have pointed their iTunes to an iTunes library on a network drive.  You may see these symptoms immediately, or after a reboot or even intermittedly. We posted a blog post a while ago about File Not Found errors similar issues and it is the same root cause problem here. Windows Services cannot reliably see mapped network drives.  There are many Microsoft articles explaining why, but in essence, any network drive letter is tied to a Win... [More]

12 Ways to Make an Airport Express More Reliable

Filed under AirPort Express , General , iHomeServer , iTunes

So you've built a multi-room AirPlay setup; an Airport Express in every room hooked to a killer amp.  It's all working just great, but then just as you're about to woo the girl of your dreams by playing "Wonderful Tonight" simultaneously in every room of the house, you get the dreaded 'drop-out' or worse still, 'Bedroom Speakers' disappears from the speakers menu of your iPhone Remote App!

This post gives some hints and tips about how to get AirPlay working better, without dropouts so you get glitch free audio and video

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Use iTunes to create a Sonos like setup for a fraction of the cost!

Filed under iHomeServer

Sonos offers a solution to "Play all your digital music all over your house wirelessly". This post shows how you can save around £414 by building a multi-room streaming solution using iTunes and iHomeServer, which also supports video!

Why spend money on something when you probably have all the bits lying around the house to set up an awesome media streaming solution?

This post shows how to use AirPlay and Home Sharing to set up a server that can stream to any iOS device and how to integrate AirPlay into existing TVs, and hifi systems

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Where are the iHomeServer for iTunes log files?

Filed under iHomeServer

Lots of people have asked us where iHomeServer puts its log files. The answer is that most important messages are written to the Windows Application log file so you can use Event Viewer to look at the main events that have taken place or major errors. A much more verbose log is written to: %APPDATA%\iHomeServer (for iTunes)\iTunesHomeServer.log [More]

How to run iHomeServer for iTunes as a non admin user

Filed under iHomeServer , iHomeServer

When you install iHome Server for iTunes, you specify the user account under which you wish iTunes to run.  Of course, you can use your normal Windows account to do this, in which case, when prompted, just enter your account name in the form COMPUTERNAME\USERNAME, eg: WIN7-COMPUTER\Joe.Bloggs Enter your Windows logon password, or if you don't, leave the password fields blank. However, it makes sense to set up a brand new user to act as your system iTunes account.  In this case, follow these steps which are applicable to Windows 7.  If you are using a different operating system, then there may be minor variations: 1. Go to the "Computer Management" applet which you can find under Control Panel / Administrative Tools:      2. Create a new user account for your iTunes Home Server, specifying a password.  Ensure you uncheck 'user must change password on next logon' and make the account's password never expire:   3. Now comes the tricky bit.  D... [More]