Referenced Account is Locked Out

It's working OK now so I can't test it unless there is some sort of history that tracks account lockouts, but it sounds like the problem I had.

I hope you don't mind that it's not a quick answer?

I don't particularly like the way HP implemented it on my specific system. It's a bit underpowered to use as an actual server, but WHS itself does much more than I need and appears to do it well. It is possible to use a WHS PC as an Internet server or a media streaming device or mail server or any number of things other than just backup, and its hardware requirements are not terribly demanding BUT if you want to run IIS or do streaming you probably don't want to be at the low end of the hardware requirement range. In theory the backup is adequate to completely restore the client PC to its pre-crash state with intact program installs and product activations, which is what initially interested me. The backups I've used before did not do that very well. I have not tested that specific capability, and I hope I never need it, but I know that WHS does an adequate job of backing up the files themselves. And it has the virtue of fully automating the process so I know the backups are actually getting made.

I think I bought mine about 2 years ago. IIRC it's a 1 GHz Pentium equivalent with about 500 MB RAM (or is that 500 MHz with 1 GB RAM?). The WHS Console is set up to do nightly backups of all the PCs on the LAN, but it does so very efficiently so files are not stored more than once regardless of which PC they came from or when they were backed up. The drive array has some fault tolerance and it is designed to run headless. That's all good.

The GOOD news about buying a pre-packaged system like I have is that it is nearly idiot proof. Since I know beans about running a server that is a VERY good thing. If you know a bit about servers I'd recommend getting a less expensive, more capable box and setting it up yourself but MS is not really marketing to the home builder crowd so a lot of folks don't know much about it.

WHS has limitations. Mine only backs up 1 PC at a time, so there are nights when it does not get all the clients backed up. I don't know if that is because of bandwidth issues or because my system is under powered or if that is just the way HP chose to set it up. I think the max number of client PCs and user accounts are both set at 10 (large for a family, but if you upgrade a couple of PCs and keep the old backups and want to let Grandma access the system to view the new baby's pics it would not be hard to hit the limit with a normal size family). I doubt anybody is making printer drivers specifically for WHS but they MAY make drivers for another OS that will work - you don't know unless you try.

I may try to put our main printer/scanner on the server so I can scan documents without getting in anybody's way but I don't know if it will work. I'd have to use remote desktop to control the scan process. That's not really hard, but the question is whether I trust the rest of the family to use Remote Desktop to access the server - HP STRONGLY recommends against doing that because it is easy to mess things up. OTOH they don't provide an obvious way to control a printer/scanner via the management console.

So, it isn't perfect, but there's a lot to like. I'm probably going to add another terabyte of storage soon because I've only got a few hundred GB left. Actually, that illustrates the efficiency of the storage system. I've got multiple backups for ~6 PCs on the system, all of them have at least 250 GB storage (some are WELL over that), and in many cases there are a number of identical files on each PC. My guess is we have at least 1-1.5 TB of data on the LAN, but my 1 TB WHS system has multiple full backups of each PC at various stages of its life and still has about 250 GB free.

The one issue I have not fully resolved is how I backup my WHS system. I need to figure that out.

which seem to be Linux based. My few excursions into the Linux world have been short lived and more confusing than helpful. As well, whatever I get here will be for my wife to use and understand as well. We're both fairly comfortable with Windows and work our way through some of the muck and mire that bogs us down at times. I don't need automatic backups or media streaming but just a bit more than simple storage. My wife works in a school and carries work back and forth between there and home via laptop. From home, she can access a NAS at school to retrieve or deposit files and it would be helpful for her to have access to a home NAS of some type as well. I was going to try doing this with a retired PC and my old copy of W2k. I had it working at home but decided to scrap the NAS/home server idea. I've found the Windows Home Server boxes to be priced in the same range as some simple NAS devices I've considered but would hate to get into compatibility issues as we slowly move to Win7 at both home and school. My focus is on learning Win7 for that purpose so am spending lots of time reading posts here and elsewhere to pick up what I can. I have to think that Win7 based home server might already be in the works already. There never seems to be a perfect time to buy into technology. Thanks for your reply.

I know that WHS does support access from the Internet so it would accomplish that part of your goal. I suspect that there are no major issues with Win 7 - the problem I had was self inflicted and apparently not related to Win 7 per se.

WHS does support access supported by a Dynamic DNS service, and mine used to work before my ISP reconfigured their home service. Now I don't know if it works because I cannot test it from home due to the way the ISP set things up. I got tired of dealing with the messages from WHS about how it could not verify the availability of its service (because of the ISP configuration) and I didn't really need the service so I just turned it off. I don't remember all the details but it has something to do with 'local loopback' (not sure if that is the right label) that sometimes limits the ability to correctly connect with a computer using dynamic DNS services when you are on the same LAN as the computer. I confess I never completely understood the problem. I'm told it can be addressed with careful configuration but that in these cases it is only possible to test whether the WHS access is up if you are accessing from outside the LAN. I would guess you could test it by visiting an anonymous proxy site and then accessing your system from there. I can't test that way because my ISP blocks anonymous proxies as part of its content filtering. The only down side to this is if the problem comes up the server cannot access itself to see if it is visible. Not a big deal.