Has anyone installed Netcam Studio on windows server core?
I am planning on moving the server portion onto a HyperV guest running Windows Server 2019 Core and wondered if anyone has done this or if it is supported?
Netcam studio on Server Core
Hi,
Search for HyperV in this forum and you will find more info. A couple of things:
-licensing of NCS is based on hardware configuration and it is important that HyperV channels correct parameters.
-NCS is not tested on Windows Server 2019. Users are running on Server 2016 and it works. Download and test NCS in that environment.
-aha, you say Core version. No experience what I am aware of since we usually need the graphics. Do you plan to run NCS as a service and connect to NCS using the client from another computer?
-licensing can only be done from the NCS X. Maybe using WebAPI, but I am not sure.
-Henrik
Thanks for the pointers.
I will install 2106 core just to be safe for now and test with the free version.
Yes I am planing on running as a service and using a client to manage it. I don’t have much experience with core, but it seems to have some sort of GUI I have seen when installing some drivers. I will update when I have got a chance to test it.
Quick update. I have installed the unlicensed version on Server core 2019 (didn’t have the media for 2016) and it is all working great! It appears that core does support gui programs, it is just all the windows apps/desktop etc which is stripped out.
I have one issue though with blob detection. I get the error
“Error in Image Processing for Motion Detection
Exception Detail:The type initializer for ‘OpenCvSharp.CPlusPlus.NativeMethods’ threw an exception.”
which I assume some library is not installed. The issue seems to have been raised before at Error in image processing for Blob Detection
@Henrik did you manage to solve this?
Thanks for reporting back! Great news!
If possible, a little more detailed explanation would be very much appreciated.
I tested to run Blob detection just now and it works fine on a Win 10 Pro. In server versions some features are disabled by default. That might be the problem here. Fir example Desktop experience must be enabled.
-Henrik
Do you mean that for blob detection to work, the Desktop Experience needs to be installed?
I migrated from a Win 2008 R2 server where Blob detection was working - I copied the configuration files from this server to the new server so the camera setup is the same. Which is why I assume it is something missing on the new server. I have FrameDifference working on the new server.
The setup on core was pretty straight forward. I suggest logging in locally and using the sconfig program to do the initial server setup and then install “Windows Admin Center” on another machine to remotely manage the server. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/understand/windows-admin-center
The only real issue I had was with the user I created for the service to log in with. I had to use a powershell script to set the “log on as a service” permission. There are plenty of scripts out there like https://github.com/ivadim/grant_logon_as_service/blob/master/files/Grant-LogOnAsService.ps1
I could run NCS X to activate the licence with no problem.
I tested on a Win Server 2016 and it seems that the feature Media Foundation must be installed for Blob detection to work.
Thanks for the description. I will move this to the Guides for Netcam Studio since I am sure more users are interested.
A very interesting question is if the core version with NCS installed will use less cpu resources than the standard version?
To be honest I am sold on using core for all my servers now. It was much easier than I expected to install and configure it.
I can’t say about cpu resources, but the main idea of core is to reduce the memory usage and have less of an attack surface for malware.
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