Windows Home Server 2011 : Working with Shared Folders

Creating a New Shared Folder

Windows Home Server’s predefined shared folders should suit most needs, but you might require other folders to hold different file types. For example, you might want a folder for scripts, a folder for downloaded programs, or a folder to hold user calendars. Windows Home Server allows you to create as many shared folders as you need. Again, it’s possible to create and share folders outside of the Dashboard, but if you want use the simple permissions system, you need to create and share the folder within the Windows Home Server Dashboard.

Follow these steps to create a new shared folder:

1.	Launch Windows Home Server Dashboard.
2.	Select the Server Folders and Hard Drives section.
3.	Display the Server Folders tab.
4.	Click Add a Folder. Windows Home Server launches the Add a Folder Wizard, shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. In the initial Add a Folder Wizard dialog box, type a name and description for the new shared folder.
5.	Type a name for the folder. Note The folder name must consist of only letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens (-), underscores (_), or periods (.), and it must end with a letter or number.
6.	Type an optional description. (This text appears in the Description column of the Server Folders tab.)
7.	Click Next. The wizard asks you to set the access level for the users. Caution Note that the default access level for all users is Read (except for the Guest user, which is set to None). If you want a particular user to have full control over the new share, be sure to change that user’s access level to Full.
8.	Click an access level command: Everyone (Full Access)—Click this command to give all users Full Access (Read/Write) permission on the new folder. Skip to step 12. Everyone (Read Access)—Click this command to give all users Read Only permission on the new folder. Skip to step 12. Specific People—Click this command if you want to apply different access levels to different users.
9.	If you clicked the Specific People command, the wizard prompts you to choose the access level. For each user, use the Access Level list to select the option that corresponds to the access level you want to apply: Read/Write, Read, or No Access.
10.	Click Add Folder. Windows Home Server creates the folder and applies the access permissions. The new folder appears in the Server Folders tab.
11.	The wizard prompts you to configure backups for the new folder.

Moving a Shared Folder

Because Windows Home Server 2011 no longer comes with Drive Extender, it no longer maintains a storage pool, so the server hard drives now operate much like hard drives on any other Windows operating system. In particular, if a hard drive gets full and there are no old or unnecessary files to clean out, then you have no choice but to add another hard drive to the system and use it to store any new files you add to the server.

Of course, even without Drive Extender, Windows Home Server isn’t quite the same as any other Windows OS. In particular, there are those built-in shared folders that are just so easy to configure, access, share, and stream. If you add a new hard drive to the server and the old hard drive containing the shared folders is full, don’t you effectively lose access to the shared folders (at least as far as adding new files goes)?

On the face of it, the answer is a disappointing “Yes.” Fortunately, however, Windows Home Server 2011 enables you to move a shared folder to a new location. So if your original 500GB hard drive is bursting at the seams and you add a shiny, new 2TB drive to the server, you can move all the Windows Home Server shared folders to the new drive and carry on with your life just as it was before.

Here are the steps to follow to move a shared folder to another drive:

Accessing Previous Versions of Shared Folders or Files

Windows Home Server 2011 implements an interesting new technology called Shadow Copies of Shared Folders. The idea is that, twice a day (at 7:00 a.m. and at 12 noon), Windows Home Server creates copies of all its shared folders, as well as the files in those shared folders. These files are called shadow copies, and each one is essentially a snapshot of the folder’s or file’s contents at a particular point in time. Because each shadow copy of a shared folder or file is a version of that object, any shadow copy that was taken prior to the current version of a folder or file is called a previous version.

Windows Home Server offers three different scenarios for using previous versions of shared folders and files:

• Recovering an overwritten file—If you copy a file to a shared folder that already contains a file with the same name, you might overwrite the existing file. If you later decide you need the original file, you can restore a previous version of the file.
  
  
• Recovering an accidentally deleted file—If you use a client PC to delete a file from a shared folder, that deletion is permanent. If you then realize that you deleted the file accidentally, you can restore a previous version of the file.
  
  
• Recovering a higher-quality version of a file—If you open a file from a shared folder, make lots of edits, formatting changes, and other modifications, and then save the file, you might later decide that your changes were for the worse. You can use the file’s shadow copies to recover an earlier version of the file that doesn’t include your changes.
  
  

To revert to a previous version of a shared folder or file, right-click the folder or file, and then click Restore Previous Versions. This opens the object’s Properties dialog box with the Previous Versions tab displayed, as shown in Figure 2.

Clicking a version activates the following three command buttons:

• Open—Click this button to view the contents of the previous version of the folder or to open the previous version of the file. This is useful if you’re not sure which previous version you need.
  
  
• Copy—Click this button to make a copy of the previous version of the folder or file. This is useful if you’re not sure that you want to restore the whole object. By making a copy, you can restore just part of the object (say, a few files from a folder or a section of a file).
  
  
• Restore—Click this button to roll back changes made to the folder or file to the previous version.
  
  

Deleting a Shared Folder

If you no longer need a shared folder, you should delete it so that it doesn’t clutter the Server Folders tab. Windows Home Server enables you to delete any folder that you’ve created yourself. (You can’t remove the predefined shares, such as Music and Documents.) Follow these steps to delete a shared folder: