Home Network

[Panthro]

I have several laptops and a tower (sans monitor) and would like to put the ole tower onto the netwrk so I can store music, videos, pics, print jobs etc. Can I accomplish this without a monitor for the tower? Can I link a laptop to the tower and begin to set it up?

[g5jamz]

you have to see what you're doing...

does your tv have a VGA or input that it could accept from your tower?

Just needs to be temporary to setup the Windows Media Center. BTW...Windows 7 media center is pretty kick-A.

[Scrumtrilescent]

Buy a monitor use it for a bit, send it back.

[g5jamz]

just borrow someone's for a little bit to get it setup. Then once it's up...you can RDP into the server (mstsc /console). If you're asking if you need one for continuing on...

[Panthro]

Thanks....

[cookinwithgas]

Always have a monitor and keyboard available to get into your server when everything else fails. You can get a little 14 inch tube monitor for nothing. Relying on remote access 100 percent of the time is unrealistic and it's those times when you will need to get in for whatever reason.

[g5jamz]

Yeah...if there's "mission critical" stuff...yeah...have one. But if you're buying something...just buy a cheap LCD to use with a laptop or something. But if just file sharing (media center)...

up to you

[cookinwithgas]

Back in the day we'd have these Novell servers in a closet that would run for like 3 years straight, but that one day it acted squirrely it was great to see that old big keyboard and monitor propped up on top of the box covered in dust...

[shinner]

Windows Home Server is pretty damn easy to use....that's what all my crapola is stored on. And it can run headless if you like. I keep KVM hooked up but it's down in the basement making noise where I can't hear it.