With my corporate laptop dying on me again last week, I needed a reimage. This was then duly performed by IT Support at work. The first thing on my to do list when I booted it at home was to add it to my WHS for backup purposes.

However this didn’t quite work as expected. At the end of the Connector install, I got an error stating I already had 10 computers connected to my WHS and that to add this one, I’d need to remove one. Unfortunately removing a computer from WHS also removes ALL previous backup images of said computer as well.

Now I don’t have 10 computers in the house (more like 5) however the other computers are old images of reimaged computers (my vista x64 image of my desktop now running Windows 7 for example). The problem is I *do* was to keep these at least short to mid term just in case there’s files/resources that I’ve not yet needed or restored from them.

And anyways, I was adding the SAME machine twice, with the same computer name, the same licence key etc. Why was it looking to add it as a totally new machine?

Well the answer and solution is relatively simple thankfully. Scouring the forums, there was a general annoyance at this ‘feature’ as it was causing a lot of inconvenience to everyone, especially to people who like me, prefers to reimage their machine periodically to ensure optimal performance.

Luckily the fix is simply a registry tweak: -

From the looks of it, the first time the WHS Connector software is attempted to be installed onto a desktop it creates a registry key in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server

Within this newly created key it assigns a GUID to this machine (in the “value” called GUID ironically enough).

On the WHS, each computer is tracked by its GUID. These are again listed and managed by a registry key: -

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Transport\clients

Within this section there is a number of registry key entries, one for each of the computers managed by the WHS. If you then look at each of the keys, you’ll see the values against it show full details of each of your computers (the computer name, the Model etc).

So the fix is simple. Locate the entry under ‘Clients’ that represents the computer you’ve recently reimaged. Head back onto the computer you’re trying to add and replace the GUID registry value with this value from the WHS and reinstall the WHS Connector software.

This will then simply merge this new computer back into the existing computer account it has on the WHS as opposed to attempting to create a new one.

I’ve tried many a time to describe and show how Twitter works but a lot of my friends and family just don’t get the attraction.  In fact I’d even go as far as to say I’m regularly mocked over my twitter usage (and I’m not *that* heavy a user either!).

One example on the Saturday just gone through just demonstrates the differences between the likes of Facebook and Twitter and why it will always be viewed as an essential tool/means of communication for me. It also clearly demonstrates one particular use of Twitter that I adore.

Now, I love Facebook and I use it to keep in contact with a lot of old friends and a lot of family throughout the world who I would otherwise never really get to correspond with frequently. Twitter is truly different though in the immediacy of responses and this aspect is what clearly puts it above the other social networks with respect to interacting with your peers.

So, here I was Saturday morning, waking up in a Limerick hotel with a relatively bad hang-over. It had been a good idea at the time; A great night out on the town saying goodbye to a lot of colleagues who have recently left or would be the following week due to redundancies.

What I needed was a decent breakfast but not really living in Limerick, where could I find a great ‘greasy spoon’ in the centre of the city to have a decent fry?

A number of options were open to me:

1. Have the Hotel’s breakfast (inevitably overpriced for a buffet and probably luke-warm by the time I’d come down)
2. Ask someone in the street for a recommendation
3. Pot Luck
4. Ask my 207 followers (a number of whom would know Limerick far better than I) where a decent greasy spoon was?

I opted initially for the last one to see what I’d get back, so at 0934 Saturday morning, as I was about to check out, I tweeted “Anyone recommend a good greasy spoon in the centre of limerick??” .

Two things then happened very quickly (all within 10 minutes): -

Within 4 minutes Damien Mulley, a large presence in the blogging community here in Ireland, “ReTweeted” my question to all of his followers (all 939 of them)

5 minutes later, Alexia Golez suggested The Wild Onion on High Street. 3 minutes later Tommy Collison also recommended The Wild Onion and even supplied me with the phone number so I could ring ahead. Also two other people I don’t follow (from Damien’s follower’s) also recommended the Wild Onion.

So with four recommendations, it was sold to me. So off I went in search of The Wild Onion on the High Street.

This is a very typical use of Twitter and very often this type of interaction and usefulness of such as immediate Social Network isn’t clearly apparent. It’s in one way, a live search engine. You ask a question, and real people will answer your question or pass it onto people who will know the answer.

Suffice to say, I found The Wild Onion (which by the way I would NEVER have found had it been down to pot luck, it’s tucked away and you’d never know about it if you didn’t know about it beforehand). The food was bloody fabulous and I happily walked back to by car feeling far more human for the long drive to West Cork.