The first step is to click on the Settings icon on the Windows Home Server console and turn to the Remote Access tab (see figure 1). Click "Turn On" under Web Site Connectivity and the server will attempt to automatically configure your router to allow access to external users.
 

 If the automatic configuration fails, click on "Details" next to Router for a list of the errors encountered - each marked with an exclamation mark (see figure 2).
 

Clicking on each warning brings up a help page listing possible causes and solutions. These will most likely require manually dipping into the advanced setting on your router to enable features such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and accepting website and remote access external connections. Take note of the Home Server IP address, in our example 192.168.1.15, as you'll need to know it to manually configure the router.

If you're unsure of how to make such configuration changes, the first place to start is the router's manual. Next try a Google search including your router's make and model, such as; +"Windows Home Server" +Billion +7404VGP.You'll most likely discover other WHS users encountering the same problems and hopefully be presented with a solution. If you need to configure your router manually, the most complicated section will probably be the port forwarding - telling the router how to divert incoming connections to the server. You'll need to forward ports 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS) and 4125 (Remote Desktop) to the Home Server IP address (see Figure 3).
 

To check that the ports have been opened correctly, you can go to www.grc.com/default.htm and run a Shields Up test looking up User Specified Custom Port Probe on 80, 443, 4125 (see Figures 4 and 5).
 

You want Shields Up to show all three ports to be marked as open but, as you can see from the example, 4125 is still marked as closed. Some ISPs block certain ports by default, so it's worth checking with the help desk, but in this case the fact that 4125 is still closed appears to be a known problem with some Billion routers. Even so, when we went back to the WHS Settings and ran the Router Setup it configured the router correctly (while still claiming the router doesn't support UPnP) - see figure 6).
 

It did cause problems later running Remote Desktop. Once your Router has a green tick beside it, click set up under the Domain Name section. You'll need a Windows Live ID (a Hotmail account will do) to set up a domain name for your home server. Follow the prompts to select a domain name, click Confirm to check it's available and then Finish (see figure 7).You'll now be able to access your server from any computer on the Internet — in our example using http://adamturner.homeserver.com
 

Once you've logged into your server (after a certificate warning), you'll have access to Personal, Photos, Software, Music, Public and Videos folders (see figure 8).You can easily upload and download files using a Hotmail-like interface. From the WHS console you can enable/disable each user's remote access and change which folders they can access. 
 

Through this web interface you can also access the computers on your network by clicking on the Computers tab (see figure 9).
 

To use this feature, you need to be using Internet Explorer as it requires an ActiveX control. It only works with Windows computers which support Remote Desktop Host — machines running XP Professional or Tablet Edition with SP2, XP MCE 2005, or Vista Business, Ultimate or Enterprise. If all these conditions aren't met, you may not see the Computers tab in the web interface. Your WHS user account also needs to have remote access enabled.

On the computer you want to control, you'll need to ensure Remote Desktop is enabled under System Properties/Remote in the Control Panel. Some desktop firewall software blocks traffic on port 3389, which needs to be opened to allow the server to connect to the computer.

You also might have trouble connecting if your Windows user password doesn't match you WHS user password. When connecting, you can nominate screen size and connection speed as well as whether to enable remote printing, file-sharing and audio.

From the Computers Tab you can also access the WHS console, although you might need to add the WHS' address to your browser's list of Trusted Sites (under Options/Security). With remote access up and running, you can travel the world but always have your home network at your fingertips.

Note: Adam Turner © Permission to copy or quote extracts from this article may only be done with the written permission of the author.

Reprinted from the October 2008 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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