How to use Time Traveler; day to day use

The lower-left corner of Time Traveler add-in displays information about the state of your rollbacks.  You have access to the following information:

  1. Status: this will display “Online” if everything is configured correctly.  If you’re running a trial version of Time    Traveler and it expires then it will display “Expired Trial” and no future rollback operations will be available to you.  During normal operation this can also display “Updating database” and “Updating folder list”; these are displayed while Time Traveler is performing rollback operations
  2. Last Scan: This is the date and time of the last scan
  3. Last Rollback: this is the date and time of the last rollback created on your WHS. It may not be the same as the “Last Scan.”    For example, if a scan is run but no new or changed files are found then a rollback is not created at that time and no disk    space is used for a new rollback
  4. Total Rollbacks: this is the total number of rollbacks available. If you press the “Manually” link and there is a new or    changed file in one of your selected Shares then you will see this number increase
  5. Available Space: this is the total space available for the Time Traveler rollback database

Four schedule options are available: periodic, daily, on-file-change, and manually.  See the lower-middle section of the main screen for these settings:

  1. Periodically: this option will scan your selected Shares for new and changed files at the specified interval you choose
  2. Daily: this option will scan your selected Shares for new and changed files once per day at the specified hour you choose
  3. On file change: this option will configure Time Traveler to automatically run a new rollback whenever a file is added or changed on your Windows Home Server.  You can select the number of seconds after each file change that Time Traveler should wait before it runs a rollback
  4. Manually: this option will scan your selected share whenever you run the Console and press the Manually link.  Further, you can always run a manual rollback-point by selecting the Create rollback now link located on the lower-right corner of Time Traveler

How to rollback a Share, folder, or file to a previous version

  1. Make sure that you have Time Traveler configured and have at least one Share enabled for rollback
  2. Right-click a Share and select Rollback
  3. Select the date and time you want to rollback. By default, the date and time of the most recent rollback is selected. You can select any date and time going back to your first rollback point
  4. Select the Locate button if you want to locate a particular date/time for a file.  Selecting a file/folder on the right-hand pane will display all of the available rollback points for that file/folder in the left-hand pane.  Press Select to set the rollback to the desired rollback date
  5. Select what you want to rollback; either the entire Share, a folder within the Share, or a single file
  6. By default, your rollback is placed in the “Time Traveler Rollbacks” share.  You may elect to rollback your files directly into the original Share.  Note, rolling back files into the original Share will overwrite all files on the WHS which exist within the rollback; new files and folders which were added after the rollback date will NOT be deleted
  7. Press Rollback and your files are rolled back to the selected Share
  8. You can now view the rolled-backed files via Windows Explorer. If you wish to keep a file permanently, and you rolled back into the “Time Traveler Rollbacks” Share, then simply drag-and-drop it from the “Time Traveler Rollbacks” Share to your original share. Time Traveler will update its rollback database with the new file. Of course, you can always rollback to any previous version at any time.

How to enable shares for rollback

How to enable shares for rollback:

  1. Right-click a Share and select Enable
  2. That Share (all files and folders within the Share) will be added to the rollback database
  3. Repeat for each Share you wish to add

How to disable a share from rollback:

  1. Right-click a Share and select Disable
  2. That Share (all files and folders within the Share) will be disabled from future entries in the rollback database
  3. Repeat for each Share you wish to remove
  4. Note: existing rollback information will NOT be removed from the database when you de-select a Share but, going forward, new and changed files will not be added to the rollback database

 

A first-time users step-by-step guide to using Time Traveler for WHS

To follow along with these steps, it is assumed you have previously installed and completed the one-time setup process for Time Traveler on your Windows Home Server.

Open the WHS Console and select the Time Traveler tab.  You will see a list of WHS shares available for rollback.  To enable a Share for rollback, right-click on the Share and select Enable.

select share

Time Traveler will automatically create a rollback-point for all files within the selected Share.  Notice the status changes to    “Updating Database” in the lower-left corner.  As soon as the rollback-point is complete, this status will return to “Online.”     The first rollback-point you create for each Share will take the longest amount of time since Time Traveler has to process each byte    of every file within the Share; so be patient.  Future rollback-points will be much quicker as only new and changed files will be processed.

creating rollback point

Now that you’ve created your first rollback-point, you can view the    rollback to make sure everything worked correctly.  Select the Share which you created the rollback-point above, right-click, and select View Rollbacks.

rollback complete

You will now see the View Rollbacks window which contains a list of all files and folders within the Share you selected.  You can    click-through each folder on the right-hand side to view sub-folders and files.  As you select a file or folder on the right-hand    side, a list of all versions of the selected file or folder will display on the left-side.  For our case, you should see a single version for each file and each folder.  When you’re done viewing the rollback-points press the Exit key to return to Time Traveler and the WHS Console.

view rollbacks

Now we can configure Time Traveler to automatically create new rollback-points whenever a file is added or changed.  Note the on-file-change option is only one of four options available to you for configuring when Time Traveler creates rollback-points.  You    could also select: periodically, daily, or manually.  For the purpose of this document, we’ll select on-file-change since it’s the easiest method to create rollback-points.

Located at the bottom of the Time Traveler screen, select the Create Rollbacks listbox and select On File Change.  The default setting will automatically create a new rollback-point ten seconds after a file is added or changed within any of the Shares you have selected.

Set on file change

Now that Time Traveler is setup to automatically create rollback-points for us, open an Explorer window to view the WHS    Share you have selected above.  Now, within that Share, either make a change to an existing file or add a new file.  Now wait ten    seconds and you will notice Time Traveler changes status from “Online” to “Updating Database” while the new rollback-point is being created.

create second rollback

After Time Traveler finalizes the new rollback-point, the status will display “Online,” You can once again right-click the Share and select View Rollbacks.  Now, locate the file you changed (or added) above and verify a new rollback-point has been saved.  Notice there are now two rollback points for our file since we’ve    created two different rollback-points on the file.  Easy!

view two versions

Now, go back to the Explorer window of your Share and edit the file a few more times (you’ll need to wait ten seconds, or whatever value    you have configured in Time Traveler, between edits to make sure Time Traveler processes a new Rollback).  Now, return to the View Rollbacks dialog, select the file, and verify each of the new rollback-points is visible.  There they are!  Kewl beans!!!

more revisions saved

So far, we’ve only viewed our rollback-points.  But, what if you wanted to actually rollback to an older version of a file?     That’s just as easy.  Select your Share you have enabled for rollbacks, right-click, and select Rollback.

rollback to a revision

Now you’ll see the Rollback wizard.  By default, Time Traveler    sets the When To Rollback value to the last known rollback date.  So, if you were to press the Rollback button now then Time Traveler would rollback your entire share as it existed in the most recent rollback-point.  But, for our needs we want to rollback a single file.  So, we want to browse for a particular version of a file and locate its rollback date, we’ll press the Locate button.

rollback wizard

The Browse For Versions dialog is displayed.  This dialog is identical to the View Rollback dialog we used previously.  So, we    click-through on the right-hand side and locate the file we want to rollback.   A list of available rollback dates are displayed on the left-side.  Select your desired rollback date and press the Select button.

locate the version of your file

Notice the When To Rollback value has been updated to reflect the exact date of the version of the file you just selected.     Alternately, you can manually set a date and time if you know these details about the file you wish to rollback.  But, for our    purposes, it is much easier to let Time Traveler tell us the date and time of the version we want to rollback.

Also notice Time Traveler is smart enough to know that you what to rollback a single file so the File radio-button is automatically selected for you.  If you had selected a folder, instead of a file above, then the Folder radio-button would have been selected for you.  There’s nothing more you need to change in the What To Rollback section of the wizard.

Now, we move to the Where To Rollback section of the wizard.  By default Time Traveler will rollback your files into a Share named    Time Traveler Rollbacks.  This is to guarantee your existing files on your WHS will not be overwritten by accident.  If you want to overwrite your existing files then simply click on the listbox and select Original Location.

smart wizard showing file selection

When you click on Original Location, you will be prompted to ensure you want to overwrite the files in your WHS Shares.  For our case, we do, so select OK.

warning of overwrite

Now you are ready to rollback a single file directly into its original location.  Press the Rollback button to get started.

ready to revert

Time Traveler will begin rolling-back your file.  Typically,  this is a quick process but is dependent on the size of the file being rolled-back.

please wait

After the file is rolled-back, Time Traveler will display a notification and include a link directly to your file.  You can click the link to open an Explorer window and verify the version of the file you rolled-back is now on your Windows Home Server; safe and sound.

finally

Enjoy!!

How to view all mounted ISO files in a single shared folder

By default, ISO Mounter will mount ISO files in the same folder as the original .iso file.  That is, the original .iso file will be replaced with a mounted folder.  If you prefer to have all of your ISO files visible from a single folder then you can set the “relocation folder”
Open the Server Dashboard and select the ISO Mounter tab.
Select the “Set relocation folder” link from the Common Tasks list to display the Folder Browser dialog
Browse to the folder on your server that you want to host all mounted ISO files and select “OK.”  Note, this folder is typically located within one of the Servers shared folders to give access to all server clients
That’s it!  Now, all mounted ISO files will be displayed in both their original location as a mounted folder and in the “relocation folder” you specified.
Note this is a useful feature if you store your ISO files outside of your Server shares since the original .iso file will not be visible outside of the Server

How to burn an ISO image to a removable USB device

Select a mounted ISO file from the “Mounted ISO Name” list view and press the “Burn ISO” button on the toolbar.  Alternately, if the ISO file you wish to burn is not displayed in the “Mounted ISO Name” list view then you can select the “Burn ISO to disk” link from the “Common Tasks” area
The “Burn ISO to disk” dialog will be displayed
If the ISO file you wish to burn is not selected then press the “Browse” button to select an ISO file from your server
Select the USB device you wish to burn the ISO file to from the “Target device” list box.  If the device is not displayed in the list box then make sure the device is connected to your server and press the “Rescan” button.  ISO Mounter supports burning ISO images to removable USB devices (removable HDD, USB Keys, etc)
Press the “Burn” button
ISO Mounter will create a bootable USB device with your ISO file
Note, to boot a PC using the bootable USB device, you must have your BIOS enabled to boot from USB.  See your PC’s documentation for tips on configuring the BIOS

How to automatically mount CD/DVD ISO image files

Run the Server Dashboard and select the ISO Mounter tab
Select the “Add Watch Folder” button or the “Add An Auto-mount Folder” link to view the folder browser dialog
Browse to the folder on your server containing ISO image files you wish to automatically mount and select OK
The folder will be added to the Watch Folder list
At this point any new ISO image files which are copied into this folder, or a subfolder, will automatically be mounted and added to the Mounted ISO list.  Note ISO images files which already exist in the Watch Folder must be mounted individually.  If you wish to mount all existing ISO image files within a Watch Folder then select the Watch Folder and press the “Rescan Watch Folder” button
When you are ready to unmount an ISO image simply return to the Server Dashboard, select the ISO Mounter tab, select the ISO file you which to unmount, and press the “Unmount ISO” button
The ISO image will be unmounted and removed from the list of mounted ISO names
If you no longer wish to automatically mount ISO image files from a folder then select the folder from the Watch Folder list and press the “Remove Watch Folder” button

How to mount and unmount CD/DVD ISO images

First, ensure the ISO Mounter add-in is installed on your WHS 2011 or WHS V1 server
Run the Server Dashboard and select the ISO Mounter tab
Select the “Mount ISO” button or the “Mount An ISO File” link to view the file browser dialog
Browse to the folder on your server containing the ISO image file you wish to mount and select OK
The ISO file will be automatically mounted on your server and added to the list of mounted ISO names displayed in the Server Dashboard
At this point you can browse the mounted ISO contents, as if they were single folder, directly from your server or any PC connected to the server.  Note, double-clicking any ISO file in the list of mounted ISO names will automatically open an explorer window to the contents of the ISO image
When you are ready to unmount the ISO image simply return to the Server Dashboard, select the ISO Mounter tab, select the ISO file you which to unmount, and press the “Unmount ISO” button
The ISO image will be unmounted and removed from the list of mounted ISO names

How to Install ISO Mounter on Windows Home Server 2011

Installation of the ISO Mounter add-in is the same as any “true” Windows Home Server add-in
Download the isomounter.wssx installation file after your Purchase
Copy the isomounter.wssx file to your server or to a PC with the Home Server Connector installed
Double-click the isomounter.wssx file to begin the installation process
After installation completes, launch the Dashboard and select ISO Mounter on the upper tab bar
On first run, you will be prompted to enter your email address and order ID
Enter your email address and order ID exactly as they appear in your order confirmation email