Posts Tagged ‘HomeGroup’

Way back (in March 09) I blogged about the way Windows 7 enables you to share your Home Media via the Internet with Media Player 12. Every time I installed a new build (or another device) I linked it to the same Windows Live ID. This wasn’t a problem…until now!

Just after the release of Windows Live Movie Maker and my decision to remove OS X (hackintosh) from my pc to return to my favorite OS…OS 7 ehh..Windows 7, I tried to add my fresh installed pc to be able to play my home media when I’m on the road.

Then something strange happened. I followed the same procedure as always, but this time linking my device to my Windows Live ID failed!

Oke, I can understand that the number of deviced you can link is limited, but I can’t find a way to remove any of the prehistoric devices (all the ‘old’ Windows 7 installations and my virtual machines) from the list.

As you can see in the picture above my pc (PCHELMER) is shown twice. In total you can link up to ten devices to one Windows Live ID (I’m unable to link the 11th one).

Update : I’ve had contact with Microsoft about this issue and all they could only tell me the following : It’s a know issue, and we are working on it!

WORKAROUND : Link your devices to another (or new) Windows Live ID so you can connect 10 different devices again.

I’m not sure when it will be fixed, or what the fix is going to be….but if there is a fix I will update my blog.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could share your media collection with your friends across the internet just by giving them access by their (for example) Windows Live ID? Today I ran into an article which talks about Internet access to home media. In this how-to I will explain how you can configure this!

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I updated my Windows 7 Build 7000 (64-bit) with a new build today : Build 7048! The upgrade went smooth! No errors, but I did found some strange things. Because my business laptop was running a 32-bit version of Build 7022 and I really want all of my (64-bit capable) machines to run the latest build I had to wipe the laptop!

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Just like Play To, mentioned in one of my earlier posts, there are some more new nice new features in Windows 7!

In this blog I’ll tell you all about the Homegroup in Windows 7 and in the next few weeks I’ll tell you all about the other cool new features in Windows 7.

What is a Homegroup?
With the homegroup it’s very easy to share video’s, pictures, music, documents and printers. Everyone can remember the time where you had to be an computer expert to allow family members to access shared documents and pictures.

With Homegroup in Windows 7 this is history! (yeah, this sounds very positive, and it is!).

How do I create or install a homegroup?
Making a homegroup is easy. After you installed Windows you automatically get the question if you want to create a homegroup. At this time you also can select the libraries you want to share.

At the moment you start installing a next Windows 7 machine, instead of the screen you can see above, Windows asks you if you want to join the existing homegroup.

Of course you can also add an existing computer to a homegroup. Just go to the Network and Sharing Center (via the Network icon in the taskbar).

You’ll find the homegroup and sharing options by clicking the link you see in the image below.

Vervolgens kun je eenvoudig een homegroup maken.

Printers
One of the most exiting things of the homegroup are the automatic installations of your printer on all the pc’s in your homegroup. You don’t have to think about it, just after you joined the homegroup (in which printers are shared) they are automatically being installed on all pc’s in the homegroup.

Can you imagine? Never again you have to install the printer on the pc of your wife and kids by hand! It’s advisable to install Windows 7 on all the pc’s in your home (notice : it’s still a beta and therefore can contain bugs!), and sharing the music, films, documents and printers will never be easier again! In the image below you can see the installed printer on one of the pc’s in the homegroup.

My wife still has Windows XP on her pc for now (When she returns from work tomorrow it will be Windows 7!) and the first time she wanted to print since I installed Windows 7 on my own pc I had to create an account for her with the same password she uses on her own pc, so she can print without entering a password.

Connecting to shares of other homegroup members 
Accessing files from other homegroup members is just as easy as opening a document from your own pc. In the explorer you can see the Homegroup next to the libraries, computer and network. When you expand the Homegroup you can see al the homegroup members with their shared libraries.

I can’t imagine me returning to Windows Vista! I just finished installing Windows 7 on the pc of my wife, she just loves it!

Sharing Media
With more PCs in your household you also get more physical places where music, pictures and video are stored. The new media sharing experience makes it easy to set up media streaming. If you have already set up a HomeGroup, your music, pictures, and videos are immediately available on the other PCs and devices in your HomeGroup. And when you add new PC’s (or other media devices) to your HomeGroup, you can instantly share media with them, no additional steps are needed! You can (of course) always restrict access to the media you don’t wish to share

Media ‘Play-To’
Windows 7 supports the DLNA v1.5 standard, so you can stream digital media directly to your Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) v1.5 compliant digital media renderer (or another PC running Windows 7) accross your home network. If a device is DNLA v1.5 compliant, you can
use your Windows 7 PC to stream media to that device, play back media streamed from that device, or browse and play media on Windows PCs or third-party devices.

How does it work? If you want to listen to the music, but don’t want to hear it coming out of your (terrible) laptop speakers. Just open Windows Media Player, right-click on what you want to hear, select Play To and you’ll see a list of other devices that can play the music. If your media player doesn’t support the file format of the media you’d like to play, Windows Media Player automatically detects that and transcodes the file into a format your media receiver can play.

Media Center in Windows 7
Internet TV
When you’re watching a TV show you’ve recorded, you’ll see that the program information including thumbnails for other online episodes and links to related information, such as Internet movie trailers or related shows.
Broader Support for TV Standards
Media Center in Windows 7 supports a wider range of TV standards. Digital TV works in more than 20 global markets, including European DVB TV standards (DVB-T, DVB-S), United States ATSC  and QAM cable standard, Japan’s ISDB standards (ISDB-T and ISDB-S) and Pay TV standards.
Sharing TV in the home
PC’s in a HomeGroup running Media Center can access TV Libraries on those different PCs (of course they can also access music, photos and videos).