Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector Add-in

The Windows Server® Solutions Phone Connector add-in enables you to connect to your home, business, or storage server by using your Windows Phone 7 phone. This document provides help for the integration of Windows Phone 7 into Windows Home Server 2011, Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials (collectively referred to as Windows Server Solutions in the remainder of this document). This document also explores the features that are available when using the add-in.

After completing the integration of your Windows Phone 7 phone into a Windows Server Solutions server, you can use your phone to perform remote server management tasks (such as view alerts, manage users, and start and stop backups). In addition, with appropriate permissions, you can use your phone to view or access media files that are stored on the server.

Note

The phone applications are available in English only.

Phone and server integration components

The integration of Windows Phone 7 into a Windows Server Solutions server involves two components:

  • Windows Server Solutions phone application (My Home Server, My Business Server, or My Storage Server) This is the Windows Phone 7 component. You must install the appropriate application for the server on your phone, depending on the server that you need to connect to.

  • Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in This is the server component. You must install this add-in on the Windows Server Solutions server that you want to access through your phone.

This section provides an overview of and installation information for the two components.

Components overview

Figure 1 shows the principal components of the Windows Phone 7 integration with a Windows Server Solutions server.

WSS Phone Connector and Server Relationship

Figure 1  Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in and Windows Server Solutions phone application integration components

The phone component: Each Windows Server Solutions server has a corresponding Windows Server Solutions phone application that can be obtained from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

The server component: The Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in can be downloaded from the Microsoft® Download Center. The add-in must be installed on the server so that the phone application can connect to the server. The add-in can be used for any Windows Server Solutions server.

Installing the Windows Server Solutions phone application

You can install and uninstall the Windows Server Solutions phone application the same way you install and uninstall any other Windows Phone 7 application.

For more information, refer to the Windows Phone Help and How-to website.

You will be notified of updates to the application by a Live Tile or a notice when you launch into Windows Marketplace.

Installing the Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in

The Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in is a standard add-in package (*.wssx). To download the installation package, see Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in in the Microsoft Download Center.

You can download the add-in to any computer that is joined to the server. After the download is complete, double-click the installation package. Server-joined computers will recognize the file extension and will automatically install the package to the server. Follow the instructions on the wizard to complete the installation.

Note

You are required to install the add-in by using your administrative credentials (for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials) or your server password (for Windows Home Server and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials).

After the add-in is installed successfully, it is displayed on the Add-ins tab of the server dashboard. By selecting the add-in, you can Remove the add-in, Get help with the add-in, or Read the privacy statement for the add-in as shown in Figure 2.

Add-ins Tab

Figure 2   Server dashboard Add-ins tab

Important

Ensure that users who want to use the phone application have permissions to access Remote Web Access. You can set the user account permissions through the Users tab of the server dashboard. No further customizations or settings are required.

Component features

This section describes the features of Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in and the Windows Server Solutions phone applications.

Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in features

The purpose of the add-in is to enable remote server management tasks and to relay media streams. (For more information related to Windows Home Server and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, refer to the Media section later in this document.)

The following prerequisites must be met for the Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in to work:

  • The add-in must be installed on the Windows Server Solutions products that you want to connect to (Windows Home Server, Windows SBS 2011 Essentials, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials).

  • Remote Web Access must be turned on for the server.

  • The router must be properly set up so that Remote Web Access can be viewed from anywhere outside the local network by using your domain or the free third-level domain name that you can set up (for example, https://“myhouse”.homeserver.com or https:// “mybusiness”.remotewebaccess.com).

Non-Microsoft applications can use the same communication endpoints that the Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector add-in provides. Proper authentication and permissioned user accounts are required. Refer to the Privacy Statement for this add-in for more details.

Note

You can install and uninstall the add-in without a server restart, and you can uninstall the add-in at any time to shut off phone access completely.

Windows Server Solutions phone application features

All the Windows Server Solutions phone applications (My Home Server for Windows Home Server, My Business Server for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials, and My Storage Server for Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials) provide essentially the same level of remote server management capabilities. These are explained in more detail in Figure 3 and later in this document.

WSS Phone Connector Panorama

Figure 3   Windows Server Solutions phone application features

The differences between the three phone applications are in their media capabilities: Windows SBS 2011 Essentials does not support media streaming, and the other two Windows Server Solutions products do. Therefore, the media panorama is not available on Windows SBS 2011 Essentials.

Windows Server Solutions phone applications include the following:

  • Authentication

  • Alerts

  • Users

  • Devices

  • Media

  • Accounts

  • Live Tile Support

Authentication

Important

We strongly recommend that you protect your phone with a lock screen PIN. If you lose your phone, or someone gains access to your phone, even for a short period of time, the security of the server and other personal content on your phone or on your server may be at risk. Enhance your privacy protection by setting a PIN in the settings menu of your device. For more information, see the Windows Phone Help and How-to website.

After you start the application for the first time, read and then accept the Privacy Statement and the Microsoft Software License Terms. After that, you will be prompted to enter the credentials of your server and user account, as shown in Figure 5. Type your user name and password in the appropriate fields. If you are an administrator for the server, you can also get access to all the administrator-only remote server management tasks.

WSS Phone Connector RWA

Figure 4   Account Setup Enter Server URL screen

Whether you are presented with the Administrator Access slider (as shown in Figure 5) depends on the server that you are connecting to. In Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, there are domain accounts that already carry the information about administrative credentials. Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials do not use this type of account schema, so you must enter an administrative password to confirm administrative credentials for the account you are using.

Windows Sertver Solutions Phone Connector Logon

Figure 5   Account Setup authentication screen

You can choose to store the password by selecting Remember my password. This option allows you to not enter the password every time you launch the application to check your server. However, a stored password also means everybody in physical possession of your phone can act on your behalf and potentially perform administrative tasks or consume server content. Also, other applications and data that are stored on your phone will be freely accessible to anyone. Make sure to enable a lock-screen PIN on your phone. For more information, see the Windows Phone Help and How-to website.

You can also select the option Always use this account. This option will launch the application and automatically sign you in to the specified server by using the stored user credentials. The last account you selected will be used. You can select a different account by manually signing out and selecting the appropriate account. Only one account can be selected at a time.

Note

After you install the add-in on the server, a web service will be permanently accessible on your Windows Server Solutions server. Users with Remote Web Access rights can always authenticate against this service. If Remote Web Access is turned off, access through the Internet is shut down, but users can still make a connection through the local network. If you would like to turn off the web service, uninstall the add-in. Uninstalling the add-in removes the web service completely.

Alerts

After you complete the authentication steps for the server, an alerts listing launches on the phone. This feature brings the Alert Viewer from the server to the phone. If an alert is displayed as white, it is active and included in the alert count. If an alert is dimmed, the alert is disabled, and it is not included in the alert count. You can click on any alert item to view the full alert text, just as on a computer. Contextual menu options include enabling or disabling an alert, and performing a repair action if one was assigned to this alert.

Devices

The devices panorama enables you to:

  • View details about all computers that are connected to the server (Windows or Mac).

  • View the backup status that every device last reported to the server.

  • Start or stop a backup for any computer or the server (from the contextual menu).

Users

The users panorama enables you to perform basic user management tasks, including:

  • View user account details.

  • Enable or disable a user account.

  • Change a user account password.

Disabling a user account from your phone is the same as disabling the account by using the dashboard on a computer. The user’s access to Remote Web Access, the phone application, and any server resources are turned off. You can re-enable a user account after it is disabled.

Media

Note

The media panorama is not available on Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. It is available on Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials only.

The media panorama lets you discover and view streams of media elements that you stored on your server in appropriate shared folders. For example, if you do not place a song in the music share, it will not be discoverable by using the phone application. Subfolders are recognized.

Music

MP3 songs that are not protected by digital rights management are streamed directly from the server to your phone. Album art is also transported. Your library is searchable and can be organized in different views to help you find what you want.

Note

It is not possible to stream music while tethered to a computer and connected to a Microsoft Zune® application.

Photos

With the photos panorama, you can:

  • Discover all .png and .jpg images that are stored in the Pictures shared folder and subfolders on the server.

  • Open a picture full-screen to view it on the phone.

  • Save a copy of the picture to the phone using its original dimensions and resolution (to be viewed later in the built-in Pictures hub of any Windows Phone 7 phone).

  • Take a picture with the phone’s camera and upload it to the server.

  • Upload any picture that is stored in the Pictures hub of the phone to the server.

Videos

The videos panorama allows you to discover and view videos that are stored on your server in the Videos shared folder. Subfolders are recognized. Even though videos may be discoverable by this feature, not all formats can be streamed. The server and Windows Phone 7 prohibit the ability to create and accept streams from certain formats.

For details about which video formats can be streamed from the server and accepted by the phone, see Supported Media Codecs for Windows Phone.

Accounts

With the account panorama, you can:

  • Change the application settings. At this time, the opt-in for Live Tile support is the only setting available.

  • Log out of the current user account and select a different account.

  • Launch the about screen. You can review the license terms, privacy statement, and version number of your application.

Live Tile support

If you pin the Live Tile application to the home screen of your Windows Phone 7, you can see a variety of at-a-glance information without launching the application (see Figure 6). An opt-in using the settings menu is required. For more information, see the Accounts section.

The at-a-glance information includes:

  • Count and type of network health alerts

  • Percentage of storage use on your main disk

  • Name of the server that is sending this information

Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector shortcut

Figure 6   Windows Phone 7 Live Tile application

The server that sends Live Tile updates does not need to correspond to the server that is set for auto-logon. After enabling Live Tile support, it can take up to 30 minutes for the Microsoft Push-Notification Service to start updating your Live Tile.