{"id":593,"date":"2013-06-29T18:01:53","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T17:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/?p=593"},"modified":"2013-06-29T18:01:53","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T17:01:53","slug":"solution-to-webcam-issue-on-windows-server-2008-r2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/servers\/solution-to-webcam-issue-on-windows-server-2008-r2\/","title":{"rendered":"Solution to webcam issue on Windows Server 2008 R2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"broken-broadcast\"<\/a>
Do not adjust your TV set…<\/em><\/div>\n

After getting a new HP Micro Server I decided it was time to stop using a desktop OS (Windows 7) and move to a proper server OS (Windows Server 2008 R2). It’s a good move in many respects, but the most important is that it’s designed to be a server and run 24\/7 where as a desktop OS isn’t.<\/p>\n

Everything went smoothly until I got to setting up my CCTV software. I use a regular cheapo webcam for my CCTV needs. It’s simple but it does the job. On Windows 7 this worked great with the exception of USB webcams causing crashes on occasion. The problem I encountered was that the webcam simply didn’t work at all. The driver had been installed, and I even tried a webcam that was driverless (using built in Windows drivers). That also didn’t work. All I was getting was a black screen.<\/p>\n

What also struck me as odd is that one of my webcam applications wouldn’t run. Windows 2008 R2 is based on Windows 7, so the application should run without a problem unless an artificial restriction has been put in place. I knew it hadn’t as my friend<\/a> made the software himself and confirmed it. He suggested it was just a “general incompatibility”.<\/p>\n

Regardless, I tried another piece of his software that also dealt with webcams but this also had problems running. However in this case I got a different error message about “wmvcore.dll”. I decided to do a quick search for solutions by copying the error message, and it came up with something I didn’t know about. Windows Server 2008 R2 doesn’t come with the “desktop experience” package installed. This is installed on Windows 7 by default of course, but a server doesn’t require it because it’s not a desktop OS. Part of the desktop experience is Windows Media Player, and this is what the error was referring to. I decided it was a long shot but I installed the desktop experience package.<\/p>\n

Low and behold, after it installed (and the system rebooted twice) the webcams were now working! Hurray! It was a simple fix but had I not been able to try the 2nd application I would probably not have found the solution without it’s error message.<\/p>\n

So now I’m happy that it’s working. What I’m not happy about is that compared to my old server, this one is a little less powerful so it’s using more of the CPU to run the CCTV software (75-85% rather than 50% or so) but that’s not a huge issue. I’ll monitor it and make sure it’s not affecting backups etc.<\/p>\n

I hope this long winded article helps someone else with the same issue I’ve been having.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do not adjust your TV set… After getting a new HP Micro Server I decided it was time to stop using a desktop OS (Windows 7) and move to a proper server OS (Windows Server 2008 R2). It’s a good move in many respects, but the most important is that it’s designed to be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-servers","tag-homeserver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewwhyman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}