Win7 Home to PRO Upgrade Q&A

[The Quicken]

Originally Posted by enaberif

The term "server" can mean so many things.. And most times if someone needs to join a "domain" they need to setup active directory which leads to a whole other ball park of things to take care.

Personally I think they are needing a server.. but not to the degree of an ACTUAL server

I really need to be more specific lol.

My PRIMARY reason for upgrading is so I can Remote desktop (from an outside source) and I have a decent library of Blu-rays Movies/HBO shows that friends get off me on a regular basis, setting up a Domain/server that they can access from Home to DL content would be preferable. (this is simply a peripheral interest-- What I really want is Remote Desktop)

My understanding is I can't do any of the above with Win7 Home Premium (incapable of Hosting anyway). Am I wrong?

I'm planning on using DynDns for my Domain/access services.

[botat29]

Originally Posted by The Quicken

I really need to be more specific lol.

My PRIMARY reason for upgrading is soI can Remote desktop (from an outside source) and I have a decent library of Blu-rays Movies/HBO shows that friends get off me on a regular basis, setting up a Domain/server that they can access from Home to DL content would be preferable. (this is simply a peripheral interest-- What I really want is Remote Desktop)

My understanding is I can't do any of the above with Win7 Home Premium (incapable of Hosting anyway). Am I wrong?

I'm planning on using DynDns for my Domain/access services.

It's Windows Home Server you need, and it will cost you less than a Windows Pro, you will not need a Domain ans it'S easy to use, but what you means by remote desktop, what is the use you gone do of it ?

[matsta31]

I have home server, and you can create users account and limit their access to a specific folder on your home server. They can then select and get any files they want on the server in their specific folders. I mainly use it to transfer pictures of family events.

Now for remote access, like trouble shooting other PC remotely, you will need a Pro version.

[botat29]

Originally Posted by matsta31

Now for remote access, like trouble shooting other PC remotely, you will need a Pro version.

or use SBS 2011 essential... it do exactly like WHS + the remote. But it come with a price tag ( the joy of technet)

[JD]

Remote Desktop is not really intended for use over the Internet. Look into VNC, Team Viewer, EasyVPN, LogMeIn, etc. Even the MS Live Essentials stuff gives you remote access to your PC (says the commercials on TV at least, no idea how well it works).

As for sharing files with friends, best to setup a FTP server. Many free programs to do this as well such as Filezilla or Cerberus.

All of this will work on any edition of Windows. Professional has no purpose in home environments, only corporate.

Sure you could also buy WHS and use that, but then you need another PC (that you can't use for anything else really) to run it.

[The Quicken]

Originally Posted by JD

Remote Desktop is not really intended for use over the Internet. Look into VNC, Team Viewer, EasyVPN, LogMeIn, etc. Even the MS Live Essentials stuff gives you remote access to your PC (says the commercials on TV at least, no idea how well it works).

As for sharing files with friends, best to setup a FTP server. Many free programs to do this as well such as Filezilla or Cerberus.

All of this will work on any edition of Windows. Professional has no purpose in home environments, only corporate.

Sure you could also buy WHS and use that, but then you need another PC (that you can't use for anything else really) to run it.

Ok, so I can set it up so ppl can access specified files from an address outside my home network? Via FTP using WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM ?

[The Quicken]

What I would like to do is this,

Friends can enter a Domain Name to access my site, enter a password to enter my site.
They would have read permissions, possibly limited write depending on who they were.

My understanding is DynDns offers free & payed services that would give me a Domain Name and software that would update my IP. My ISP does not offer static IP's unless you pay extra $$. DynDns is a nice free work-around.

[frontier204]

Yep I've used DynDNS to allow access to a Subversion server running on a Linux box. My router directly supports DynDNS, so I just put my username and password into the router and it handles updating the DynDNS if Rogers changes my IP. You can use any OS you want for this, so Windows Home Premium will be fine.

As JD said, you can use FTP to transfer files (although I recommend using a port other than 21, the default, for your server or you'll get on the hit list of every script kiddie out there). I used Subversion over HTTPS to allow my team mates to access files (read/write) on my server from home because we were doing a programming project. If you're using FTP, then your friends can access your files with ftp://<yourname>.dynalias.net:<port> and will be prompted to enter a username and password. You can set up the permissions to be either read only or read/write if you like.

Of course if you open a port to the Internet with a filesharing server or web server, you have to assume someone will try to hack it. That's why my server only allows certain IPs via whitelist.

LogMeIn doesn't even need DynDNS if memory serves me right, because it's accessed straight from LogMeIn's web page.

[JD]

Originally Posted by The Quicken

What I would like to do is this,

Friends can enter a Domain Name to access my site, enter a password to enter my site.
They would have read permissions, possibly limited write depending on who they were.

My understanding is DynDns offers free & payed services that would give me a Domain Name and software that would update my IP. My ISP does not offer static IP's unless you pay extra $$. DynDns is a nice free work-around.

Yup, FTP will let you do that. You'll just need to port-forward whatever port you chose via your router. And as suggested above, don't use port 21. Otherwise you'll have 24/7 traffic of people attempting to login with username "admin" or similar.

Any FTP software also allows you to create multiple user accounts and provide them access to select folders on your PC along with whatever permissions you want. You can also limit how much space they have in a folder too if you're allowing uploads.

And yes, this will work with Windows 7 Home Premium.

I personally use NoIP over DynDns, but they're all the same. Just depends on what kind of name you want.