What do you do to convert a barely useful system into a completely broken system? You release a patch! And so HP set to work to develop and release the long awaited update 2 for the MediaSmart 3.0 software, providing large parts of their customer base with a whole new level of psychological terror. If you’re lucky enough to see TwonkyMedia re-index your entire media collection without crashing in the process, you will be rewarded with ASP.net related error pop-ups and a dysfunctional HP tab in the Home Server Console, a sloppy and bug infested media browser, high CPU utilization and literally hundreds of errors and warnings in the Windows event log.
Like many other users, I have previously spent a lot of time with getting the home server to work somewhat reliably for more than a few days in a row, and I have decided that it’s time to stop playing this game and pull the trigger on uninstalling TwonkyMedia and the HP software alltogether. Despite temporarily losing support for the system health LED, which I haven’t looked into yet, my quality of life improved instantly, and I have not yet regretted my decision.
This article describes the steps for getting rid of the factory malware that ships with the HP home servers. I hope I can encourage others to liberate themselves as well.
Read more