First in a series of three posts about PS3 Media Server. Install is a breeze, just run the installer (as admin) and if you don’t have JRE it’ll download and install it for you; if you need x64 you’ll need to download it manually.

The problem I encountered on Windows 2008R2 was that the provided, ‘Install as a Windows Service’ option didn’t work correctly. It uses Java Service Wrapper and seems to install and start correctly. Netstat even shows it listening on the correct interface and correct port. The only thing I could find, was the debug log showed that it was trying to use a temp directory that didn’t exist. However, even creating that directory and making sure it had permissions, it still wasn’t working. This may also be a problem on Windows 2008, I’m not sure and I didn’t find any mention of it on the PS3 Media Server forums.

The solution was to use good old instsrv / srvany from the Windows 2003 Resource Kit. Go through the normal process of using instsrv, naming your service and then pointing to srvany. Edit the service in the registry, add a key for Parameters and then add two strings: AppDirectory and Application and modify them with the correct paths (self explanatory). Optional: add a key for Description to the service key. I’m not comfortable having an open source dlna server that’s running as Local System, and you can change it to Local Service or create an account to use.

The final step is to create a Windows Firewall exception for %Program Files%\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe on TCP 5001. TCP 5001 is the default, if you forced it to a custom port you’ll need to substitute.

I like PS3MS over the competition like TVersity (but to be honest I haven’t checked around for the last 6mo or so) … and this is pretty lame.

Note: if you need to make any changes to the server, stop the service, load the program from the desktop, save your changes – quit, and then restart the service.

Part 2: PS3MS movie / folder thumbnail icons