HTPC OS recommendation

[Neuromancer]

IS their anyone running 2008 on thier HTPC?

I am considering selling my little intel HTPC to a local couple that needs a cheap PC, and was going to put my quad core AMD system in there instead. (or slapping my 4850 in it for a pocket gamer for a little while until I can upgrade to deneb) Besides quadcores really belong in media encoding machines :)

I figure with all the extra power it should be pulling many duties, including file server, and HTPC server (going to try out one of the HTPC softwares that lets you run lite front ends on all other PCs in the house, and run the backend from the main HTPC :))

I have not run a server OS for a while and I remember all the difficulties with software compatability for it then.

So is it worth the possible software frustrations to use server 2008 on an HTPC?

[Olias]

IMO, if all you need is a server to run HTPC software and act as a file server, there's no real need to us an expensive OS like 2008 Server. I used to run NT 4.0 Server, then Windows 2000 Server and then 2003 SBS. But my latest "server" is running Vista Home Premium. Using an ABIT AB9 Pro mobo with a Q6700 and the motherboard supplied RAID does all that I need. With 9 drives in it, I have plenty of storage for my media and a central network share for the other PCs in the house.

I use SageTV on the "server" to capture from two internal ATSC tuners and two external HD sat tuners. Video is played out to the PCs and a pair of HD Extenders.

The Vista OS does every thing that I need in a home server.

[JustChill]

yep, Vista X 2. It does everything you will need just make sure its prem.

[Neuromancer]

I already have the OS (I do a lot of beta testing for MS, but TBH, I am not sure where I got this from) so it would not be a point of "wasting" any money.

But I do see you point.

[Neuromancer]

I realized that RDP will interfere with HTPC activities unless I run server.

Since this is going to be the powerful computer I am going to want all encoding/decoding duties to be performed by it. RDP (or something similar) is going to be needed. I do not know of a VNC app that will let you login as a second user without disturbing the first. (the only thing I can think of that comes close is BeTwin software... which when I tried before I could not get to work :S)

[tgxiii]

You can allow concurrent sessions in Vista: http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1220&Itemid=1

I don't have the link handy, but you'll have to get the DLL patched for service pack 1 if you have SP1 installed.

[Neuromancer]

You can allow concurrent sessions in Vista: http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1220&Itemid=1

I don't have the link handy, but you'll have to get the DLL patched for service pack 1 if you have SP1 installed.

LOL Just going through my subscriptions to clean them out. Funny I missed your post before.

I just came across that site about 30 minutes ago and already copied the DLL and the file to my storage drive getting ready for the HTPC reinstall :)

(Also came across another site that tells you how (if you do that hack) to watch the "current logged in user" so RDP works like VNC.


Decided on just sticking with ultimate trimmed down a bit. Going to ditch media center for mediaportal, stop the WMP Sharing stuff from running, since I do all my shares, through shares :P, probably going to run static IPs and disable the network snoops to increase productivity on the network front. Not sure about indexing. The ability to search documents via content is pretty freaking sweet, and its only a performance hit to start. I do not have a lot of documents yet, but if I get my buisness up and running I might.

I havent decided about Aero yet. Hmm

[DohDoh]

Excuse me, but I am little bit behind on the HTPC times.

I want to turn on my pc, open up the dvd/bluray drive tray and insert disc and want it to automatically play the movie without actually booting up the system. What OS will do that?