Setting Up Your Windows Home Server 2011 Network : Troubleshooting Network Problems (part 1)

Connecting Windows Home Server to a Windows 7 Homegroup

One of the major innovations that Windows 7 brought to the networking table was the idea of a homegroup. This is a collection of computers on a peer-to-peer network that use a single password to share data between them. The idea is that once you join a homegroup by entering the homegroup password, you never need to worry about networking again because Windows 7 handles all the connections for you automatically. This is in contrast to the more traditional way of managing networking connections and sharing resources, which is by setting up user accounts and passwords and then assigning user permissions for each shared resource.

In other words, homegroups are designed to make networking easier and less problematic for new and inexperienced users, particularly home users. So it’s not surprising that Windows Home Server 2011 comes with support for homegroups baked in. If you already have a Windows 7 homegroup on your network, follow these steps to join Windows Home Server to the homegroup:

Viewing the Windows Home Server Network

With your Windows Home Server networking tweaks done, you can now check to make sure that the rest of the network can see the server:

• In Windows 7, click the Windows Explorer taskbar icon, and then click Network.
  
  
• In Vista, select Start, Network.
  
  
• In XP, select Start, My Network Places, and then click View Workgroup Computers. (If you have the Folders list displayed, open the My Network Places, Entire Network, Microsoft Windows Network branch, and then click your workgroup.)
  
  

Figure 1 shows Windows 7’s Network window, which displays icons for the computers, devices, and shared media connections on the network (as does the Network window in Vista). (XP just displays icons for the workgroup computers.)

Figure 1. Windows 7’s Network window may have as many as three icons for Windows Home Server.

Notice that for the Windows Home Server machine, you might see as many as three icons:

• Server Device icon—Double-click this icon to see data about the server as a network device. The data includes the server’s IP address and MAC address.
  
  
• Server Shared Folders icon—Double-click this icon to see the server’s shared folders.
  
  
• Server Shared Media icon—Double-click this icon to open Windows Media Player, which then lets you access the server’s shared media. This icon appears only when you configure Windows Home Server to share its Music, Photos, or Videos folders.

Troubleshooting Network Problems

Big-time corporate networking is a complex, arcane topic that taxes the patience of all but the most dedicated wireheads (an affectionate pet name often applied to network hackers and gurus). There are so many hardware components to deal with (from the network adapters to the cables to the routers to the hubs) and so many layers of software (from the device drivers to the protocols to the redirectors to the network providers) that big networks often seem like accidents looking for a place to happen.

Home networks are much simpler beasts and, more often than not, they work well right out of the box. That’s not to say that home networks are bulletproof—not by a long shot. If your network has become a notwork (some wags also refer to a downed network as a nyetwork), this section offers a few solutions that might help. I don’t make any claim to completeness here, however. Most network ills are a combination of several factors and are therefore relatively obscure and difficult to reproduce. Instead, I go through a few general strategies for tracking down problems and offer solutions for some of the most common network afflictions.

Checking Connection Status

A good starting point for diagnosing network problems is checking the status of the Windows Home Server network connection. This shows you things such as your connection status, connection speed, current IP address, network’s default gateway addresses, DHCP server, DNS servers, and so on. Invalid entries for these and other status items could provide a hint as to where the network problem might lie.

To display the connection status, log on to Windows Home Server, select Start, type network, click View Network Connections to open the Network Connections window, and then double-click the connection.

Figure 2 shows the Status dialog box that appears. In the General tab are two groups to check out, as follows:

• Connection—This group shows the connection’s current status: Connected or Disconnected. If the status value shows Connected, the Duration value shows how long the connection has been active, and the Speed value shows the connection speed in Mbps or Gbps.
  
  
• Activity—This group shows the number of network packets that the connection has sent and received. A low number for either value gives you a hint about the direction of the problem. For example, a low Sent value might indicate that Windows Home Server can’t communicate with the client computers.
  
  

For other network connection data, click the Details button to see information such as the addresses of the DHCP server (this appears only if you’re using a dynamically allocated IP address), DNS servers, and so on.

You can also click Diagnose to initiate the Windows Home Server network connection repair utility.

Checking Network Utilization

If your network feels sluggish, it could be that the computer you’re working with is sharing data slowly or that network traffic is exceptionally high. To see whether the latter situation is the cause of the problem, you can check out the current network utilization value, which is the percent of available bandwidth that your network adapter is currently using.

To check network utilization, follow these steps: