All Answers
Since Microsoft has now completely abandoned the Windows Server Essentials Experience (WSEE) server role (with Windows Server 2016 being the last “official” version of Windows Server to have the server role available), there will be no more “new” versions of the WSE RemoteApp add-in going forward (i.e. there will never be a “WSE RemoteApp 2019” or “WSE RemoteApp 2022“). However, since the WSEE server role can quite readily be extracted from Windows Server 2016 and installed on Windows Server 2019 and/or Windows Server 2022, I have adapted WSE RemoteApp 2016 to work under those newer versions of Windows Server (with WSEE taken from Windows Server 2016 and installed on 2019 or 2022 via our WSEE Installer). As such, a purchased license of WSE RemoteApp 2016 can indeed be used under Windows Server 2016, 2019 OR 2022.
However, as per our Policy page, your purchased license is valid for use on a single server only. While you are free to move the license to a new/different server once in a 21-day period, you cannot randomly move it between the three different server versions for “testing” purposes (unless you wait at least 21-days between moving the license that is). The only way for you to do that would be to run a 21-day “evaluation” of the add-in on each of the different server versions in order for you to decide which one you’d like to use. Unfortunately, not all of the add-in’s features are available while it is running in evaluation mode though (and the only way to get around that would be to purchase three completely separate licenses I’m afraid).
That being said… Since the core WSEE is taken from 2016, your “Essentials” experience would be nearly identical under each different version of the OS.
- Mike answered 6 years ago
- last active 6 years ago
Im also sorry for having issues with the RemoteApp software.
its fairly sure that during the disabeling of the TLS 1.2 specs, the software broke a few IIS options.
I just found out that:
using %servername%
%servername%/Connect
BOTH give an 500 error,
While
%IPaddress%
%IPaddress%/Connect
BOTH are working (showing/displaying atleast)
I dont have a client to retest the working of the connector software.
=============================================
probably 1 of the bugs is, when you ‘disable’ HSTS, the option of actually disabeling wont work.
The 2 greyed-out boxes are indeed ACTIVE on:
IIS > Default Website > Action section > Advanced Settings > HSTS tab
=============================================
The only issue now is why does the IIS only work on IP level?
where did the ServerName go to?
- MOHdennisNL answered 4 years ago
Hi Mike. This attempt was successful. I was able to disable encryption in Server Manager and then enable inheritance with PowerShell, and so my admin account can manage the share.
FWIW, I just bought a lifetime license for your add-ins. Not sure how many of us are left, haha, but I appreciate the work you do to keep WSE alive.
Best,
Gary
- Gary Voth answered 2 years ago
- last active 2 years ago
If you have kept a copy of the installation program (i.e. the .wssx and/or exe’s) for the version of WHS RemoteApp 2011 that you were last using, then you can reinstall the add-in using that older version of the installer without needing to renew your license. Otherwise, you would need to renew your license in order to be able to install the latest version of the add-in.
- Mike answered 10 years ago
I’m not exactly sure what’s going on there seeing as I’m unable to reproduce that one (under the latest Version 1.255.1953.0 release), and to date, no one else is reporting a similar issue that I am aware of. WSE RemoteApp does have code in place that checks its assemblies for a valid digital signature (in order to ensure that they haven’t been tampered with), but I am unaware of any issues with that portion of the code (which has been in place for many years now).
Out of curiosity have you tried restarting your server just to see if that helps shake things loose for you? Other than that, does your server have all of the latest Windows Updates installed on it, and does it have a working Internet connection?
- Mike answered 4 years ago
- last active 4 years ago
Thanks Mike, that was a great explanation.
- Wasca answered 9 years ago
Thanks Mike, running the updater with “install anyway” did the trick. Thanks!
- Stan answered 9 months ago
- last active 9 months ago
WSE RemoteApp requires the “Windows Server Essentials Experience” (WSEE) server role under Windows Server 2016/2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter. Ensure that the WSEE server role is installed on your server(s) before attempting to install WSE RemoteApp 2016/2012 R2.
- Mike answered 10 years ago
- last active 10 years ago
Is the 1TB system drive formatted as NTFS? If not, then try formatting it as a NTFS drive instead.
Are you using Storage Spaces, or any other drive pooling software? If so, then try eliminating it.
If your SATA controller is running in ACHI mode, try switching it over to RAID mode instead (from within the BIOS).
Maybe try deleting the partition table on the drive and recreating it.
Try using a different drive altogether.
From the sounds of it, there appears to be some kind of a hardware/software based drive/storage issue going on there, which doesn’t really have anything to do with the WSEE Installer per se I’m afraid.
- Mike answered 4 years ago
- last active 4 years ago
Personally, you’re MUCH better off just starting over from scratch with a brand new/clean Windows Server installation, or by restoring from backup back to a point in time before you very first installed WSEE onto your server.
That being said… You can indeed uninstall WSEE from your server by doing the following (make sure that you have a working backup of your server before doing so just in case you need to get back to where you are now if something happens to go wrong during the uninstall process):
1. Locate and then run the following program/cleanup wizard on your server:
C:\Windows\System32\EssentialsRoleCleanupWizard.exe
2. Open the Control Panel’s “Programs and Features” applet on your server.
3. Locate and then select the existing “Windows Server Essentials Experience” program, click on the “Change” button, and then uninstall it from the wizard that appears.
- Mike answered 5 years ago
- last active 5 years ago
Thank you Mike for the reply.
I finally had to purchase a new domain name compatible with Windows Essentials.
I have another question regarding the custom domain name procedure.
I followed your procedure because it is the best described alternative when remotewebaccess.com is no longer available to set up. I’m in the process to install a clean WS 2012 R2 server with Essentials Experience. I managed to get it up and running, but in your procedure for Let’s Encrypt Certificate and Certify The Web, it’s preferable to use your PowerShell script to to allow the native tools built into Essentials to configure the SSL certificate properly.
Since I’m installing a WS 2012 R2 server, I’m not and can’t use your PowerShell script. So, would you be so kind to tell me what I have to do manually every time the certificate get’s renewed?
Thanks
- Francois Boucher answered 2 years ago
- last active 2 years ago
Strange as I’ve never come across that one before. From the screenshot you’ve provided, it appears that the PowerShell cmdlet being used to enable the Work Folders server role on your server is failing due to a missing referenced assembly (but it doesn’t indicate which assembly is missing).
Have you tried restarting your server, and then running the “Enable Work Folders” task in the server Dashboard again?
Other than that, you can try signing in to the desktop of your server as an administrator, opening the Server Manager, and then manually adding the Work Folders server role to your server (Server Roles -> File and Storage Services -> File and iSCSI Services -> Work Folders). After that, go back and try running the “Enable Work Folders” task again in the server Dashboard.
- Mike answered 5 years ago
Now that you’ve mentioned it… I do recall that there was an issue with the Windows Media Player stuff (it’s been many years since I last looked it). More than likely, Microsoft removed WMP from Windows Server 2016 and that’s why they abandoned their media streaming pack in Essentials 2016. You’ll probably need to chase down all of the files, etc. required by the Windows Media Player sharing service (etc.) and add it to 2016 in order to get things working. Probably not a trivial task to accomplish I would imagine.
As for changing the Dashboard color scheme… I’ve never messed around with doing any of that stuff before, but it appears that there are a couple of goofs within the XML file example that Microsoft lists on their documentation page that are preventing it from working properly. I was able to get it working by doing the following to their XML example:
Change “https” to “http” within the DashboardTheme line.
Rename “ClientSignInButtonBackColor” to “ClientSignInButtonNormalBackColor”.
I then named the resulting XML file as “CustomColors.xml“, placed it within the “C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\OEM” folder of the server, and set the value of the “CustomColorScheme” Registry key to (without using any quotes):
C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\OEM\CustomColors.xml
After performing those changes, the XML file should be properly loaded by the server Dashboard when it starts. You can confirm this by looking at the Dashboard.log file that’s found within the following folder of the server:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs
It should show something like this if everything went okay (otherwise it’ll show you the error that’s preventing the color scheme from being loaded properly):
[6124] 220824.073346.0991: General: Color branding started
[6124] 220824.073346.0991: General: Processing Microsoft default SKU branding colors XML
[6124] 220824.073346.1056: General: Branding colors XML parsing started
[6124] 220824.073346.1056: General: Branding colors XML parsing ended
[6124] 220824.073346.1056: General: Looking for OEM branding colors XML
[6124] 220824.073346.1213: OEMBranding: Found no value for (CustomColorScheme) in language (en-US), return default value (C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\OEM\CustomColors.xml)
[6124] 220824.073346.1213: General: OEM informations available
[6124] 220824.073346.1213: General: OEM branding color scheme found: C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\OEM\CustomColors.xml
[6124] 220824.073346.1213: General: Branding colors XML parsing started
[6124] 220824.073346.1213: General: Branding colors XML parsing ended
[6124] 220824.073346.1213: General: Color branding complete
From there you should be able to adjust the colors accordingly (you can get the HEX colors codes that you need from here: https://htmlcolorcodes.com). Just be sure to restart the server Dashboard each time you edit the XML file so that it reflects the changes that you’ve made to the color scheme (and look in Dashboard.log if something goes wrong for an idea of what happened).
Best of luck, and be sure to share your finished dark color scheme for the server Dashboard (and/or Launchpad) so others can enjoy it as well.
- Mike answered 4 years ago
- last active 4 years ago
Sounds like you’re on the right track…
Go ahead and enable the Internet connection on the server, install all of the latest Windows Updates on it, and then run the WSEE Installer.
Basically, you want to start off with a brand new/clean (i.e. straight out-of-the-box) Windows Server install as your base. Do NOT install any server roles, features, or applications on the server until after you’ve installed WSEE and have completed the “Configure Windows Server Essentials” wizard.
After doing that, you can run the “Windows Server Essentials Connector” software on your client PCs (by opening a web browser window on them and going to http://<YourServerName>/connect) in order to connect them to the server (for client backups, etc.). Since you’re a WHS 2011 user, you may not want your client PCs domain joined to your Essentials server, and in that case, you can simply use Microsoft’s “SkipDomainJoin” connection method in order to stop that from happening (and hence make them behave more like WHS 2011 did). For more info on that see:
Connect computers to a Windows Server Essentials server without joining the domain
Best of luck.
- Mike answered 4 years ago
- last active 4 years ago
How can i update a starter edition to an basic edition ?
I dont have this option in the basket ?????
- Bsqz answered 8 years ago
- last active 8 years ago
If you contact us via email support, we can reset your license for you. Be sure to include the “User Name” or “Registration Key” from the license of your purchased product so that we can locate it within our sales database.
- Mike answered 6 months ago
- last active 6 months ago
See the following “How To” article for step-by-step instructions on how to enable access to your local computer’s drives from all of our products:
Enable Access To Local Computer’s Drives
Or, if you’re using Windows Home Server 2011, see:
- Mike answered 9 years ago
Hi. Yes indeed i’m using 2025. Will continue discussion on the other thread
- philliphs answered 2 years ago
As explained above, you need to contact us via the private email support page, with the User Name from your newly purchased license, and request access to the WSEE Installer. Also, please be sure to include the language edition that you wish for the WSEE Installer (English, German, etc.).
- Mike answered 5 years ago
- last active 5 years ago
Alas, I’m afraid not. The program was never intended to be used in that way, and so that type of functionality has not been built into it.
- Mike answered 8 years ago
