New build - WMC and Server combined

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Raptro6L

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New build - WMC and Server combined

#1

Post by Raptro6L » Thu Jan 11, 2018 11:56 pm

Hi all

Currently I have a pc dedicated as a file server running Win8.1 and Emby. I also have a dedicated HTPC which is running Win8.1 and WMC. I'm building a new server with Win10Por and have been toying with the idea of combining both machines into one.

The WMC side of things needs to be solid, so I'm a little reluctant to go down the Win10WNC road. I'm in Aus, so no cable card and our epg is broadcast over FTA so neither of those issues concern me, but I've read users losing their complete WMC install when Win10 updates. Fair to say that would not go down well in my household!

I'm also wanting to remote into the server whenever I wish without kicking off the current user who could be using\ watching WMC. My understanding is RDP Wrapper could take care of this function https://www.mysysadmintips.com/windows/ ... windows-10

So what about virtualization? I don't know anywhere near enough about it, but is that a possibility? Have one machine with two running operating systems on it? Win8.1 and WMC fire up automatically upon system start up or resume, and be able to switch to or remote into the Win10 server side. Possible? Reliable?

Any otehr suggestions to achieve the same goal would be more than welcome.

Thanks
Chris

jachin99

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#2

Post by jachin99 » Fri Jan 12, 2018 12:41 am

Win 10 pro has hyper V so that should not be a problem. I would just make sure you have plenty of ram. I'm not an expert on system building so I'm not too sure how much processors count for but I would plan to dedicate at least 1 possibly 2 CPUs to the VM. If you want your VM to utilize your graphics card then make sure you get a remote fx compatible card. You might need this in order to overcome the video memmory limitations of the system. As a reference I believe ceton suggested 3 gb of ram per extender. The only extender that works on win 8 is the xbox

jachin99

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#3

Post by jachin99 » Fri Jan 12, 2018 1:30 pm

You can also look at VMWare, and VBox. These might not require a certain graphics card to get full fidelity graphics or RDP. I have setup Virtual Box with WMC before, and i could at least add video memory to the guest machine but I never did get it completely functional, and chose to go another route.

sbaeder

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#4

Post by sbaeder » Sun Jan 14, 2018 3:34 am

I agree with the VM approach, but I would do it the other way around...

Run a VM on the widows 8.1 machine - i.e. let the real HW take care of WMC, and use the VM for file sharing. Then you don't have to worry about kicking anyone off the "TV" (so to speak), since the VM wouldn't have other users, since it's role is EMBY/File server (for the most part).

BUT, you will need a pretty beefy processor and plenty of RAM to give the VM full use of a good bit of RAM, and Processor Cores. I'm going to assume that the load on the server isn't too much (although EMBY can certainly gobble up CPU/RAM if doing a lot of trans-coding to send media). Doing this, you avoid all the other issues with WMC on win10, trying to have WMC output to a Virtual Screen, etc.

Good Luck.

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