MS Windows Home Server

Foldershare Beta has now moved into Windows LiveSync.
This is a tutorial, to get this installed and running as a service on WHS.

Here are the steps to turn it into a WHS Service.

Since the LiveSync software will only work when a user is logged in, the LiveSync software needs to be configured with the user log in information on the Remote Desktop, before we can turn it into a service.
This is easy enough to do, but it's an advantage if your an advanced Windows user in general.

Note: In step 7 through 9 you may have to type the commands. Copying from this post may not be succesful.

1. Log in As administator on the remote desktop of your WHS system.
2. Download and install LiveSync from the LiveSync site.
3. Configure LiveSync with your Windows Live accunt, and disable the 2nd checkmark so LiveSync won't start as an application. Exit livesync from the systemtray, and check whether it starts (logs on) automatically. If so, exit it again.)
4. You will need instsrv.exe and srvany.exe from the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools.
5. Copy instsrv.exe to C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Sync
6. Copy srvany.exe to C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Sync
7. Execute “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Sync\instsrv.exe” LiveSync “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Sync\srvany.exe”. A Message should appear that the LiveSync service has successfully been added.
8. Execute reg ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LiveSync\Parameters /v Application /d “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Sync\WindowsLiveSync.exe”
9. Execute reg ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LiveSync\Parameters /v AppDirectory /d “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Sync”
10. Start the Services applet via Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services
11. Right click on LiveSync and select properties.
12. Change the Log on settings for the LiveSync Services, by changing the 'Log On' details on the log on tab. On this tab, change the radiobutton, to have the service to log on to the Administrator account (.\Administrator). Don't forget to enter the Administrator password here.
13. Start the Live Sync service

Now Live Sync should be running, you may check this via another PC, logged onto the LiveSync site, to check whether your WHS is indeed online.

If anyone finds a way to have the service to start (and having an active LiveSync log in) under the Local System Account, please let me know. Different than the Foldershare Beta (the predesessor of LiveSync), I was not able to get this configured, without manual intervenetion after a restart of WHS.

It would be nice to have an add-in to manage/control the LiveSync activity & settings.

I can not get this to work.

I've done exactly as above but when I'm logged out as administrator via external desktop it won't work.

and when im trying to start the service in service management it says that the service started but stoppet again.

any suggestions?

I've had recently a hardware (disc) problem on my WHS, so I couldn't check it on my system. Now all my discs are OK again, and I've also done a factory recovery. As such I had to re-install everything again, including this livesync service. I've used my own instruction, to get it installed, and saw I missed some information in step 3 (now added), to stop livesync from the system tray. Other than that it just works fine.


I Must say I found that livesync sometimes needs to have it's credentials re-entered (discovered this via the livesync website, where it showed the WHS was not online). Just logging in to the remote desktop, stop the livesync service, start Livesync and enter your credentials, exit livesync and start the service again should resolve this.

Hi there - thanks for those very much needed and comprehensive instructions!! Took me all morning (you were right copy and paste didn't work - my DOS box did something strange with the "" marks!). Anyway, does this have to run as a service, as I do have to log onto to server and stop and restart it fairly regularly so far as LiveSync web site says the server is offline. I have SqueezeCenter (for serving up my music) in the tray all the time (loads in startup) and that works just fine? Would LiveSync?

Tim.

timiambeing wrote:Anyway, does this have to run as a service, as I do have to log onto to server and stop and restart it fairly regularly so far as LiveSync web site says the server is offline. I have SqueezeCenter (for serving up my music) in the tray all the time (loads in startup) and that works just fine? Would LiveSync?

Tim.

I try to avoid the usage of the (remote) desktop as much as possible. Since the WHS console cannot 'autostart' an application, I needed to have this running as a service.
In my case livesync comes online after almost every start (I schedule my WHS to be hibernated via lights out throughout the night). So every morning the WHS starts up and automatically enables/starts livesync.

I need some help in getting LiveSync to run on my WHS.

I already have some shares syncing between my work, and home computer, but thought it would be nice to sync them directly to my WHS.

I installed LiveSync to my WHS via remote login, everything installed fine.

When I go to join my share, and link it to my folder on the WHS I can't get the LiveSync web window to respond to any of my selections. I can browse to the folder that I want to sync to on the WHS, but both the Sync here, and new folder buttons are unresponsive. I notice while hovering over them that they appear to be Javascript based. I also downloaded and installed JAVA, rebooted and still get no response. If I look in IE, and look at the section on allowing JAVA it says something about if activated it will require a reboot, and I've done this several times to no avail.

hurriken wrote:When I go to join my share, and link it to my folder on the WHS I can't get the LiveSync web window to respond to any of my selections. I can browse to the folder that I want to sync to on the WHS, but both the Sync here, and new folder buttons are unresponsive. I notice while hovering over them that they appear to be Javascript based. I also downloaded and installed JAVA, rebooted and still get no response. If I look in IE, and look at the section on allowing JAVA it says something about if activated it will require a reboot, and I've done this several times to no avail.

I've been trying to reproduce what you're saying. But all is fine here of course. It could have to do something with access rights. Did you install Livesync on WHS logged in as an administrator ?

Only when folders higher in the directory structure are already shared, I get grayed out folder views and a message that the map cannot be synchronized, since it contains already a map that's being shared. This is just the way livesync is designed.
The problem you're describing looks to me not related to WHS.
The http://sync.live.com/ works for me on IE, on Firefox and on Chrome. maybe try another browser on your (non WHS) system on which you try to configure livesync?
I'm almost sure your problem is not related to the fact that Java is not installed on your WHS. I Did not install Java to get it working.

As you seem to use multiple PC's It might be worth to try and create a new sync folder on one of your other PC - remotely - , using the same mechanism you are using to add a synced folder on WHS.

I'm using livesync for the very same reason as you described at the other Forum:
http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php?showtopic=7838
And I definitely would not like to go back using synctoy.

Anyway, I don't recognize your problem, and don't have a clear solution.