Run iTunes as a Windows Service : iHomeServer for iTunes

iHomeServer wraps iTunes as a Windows Service so it starts when your computer boots

iTunes is fast becoming the centre of many home entertainment systems. iTunes technologies such as Home Sharing and Air Play allow you to keep a centralised media library of music and video and share it with all your other household media devices. For example, you can digitize your music CDs and your DVDs into your iTunes library and then stream them to any of your iOS devices - Apple TV, iPad or iPhone. You can even remote control your iTunes installation to push media to several sets of speakers in your house simultaneously using the Apple Remote App. However, all these great features rely on iTunes being started up on your computer

Have iTunes always available for Home Sharing, Wifi Sync and AirPlay

iHomeServer installs a Windows Service that automatically starts iTunes at boot time as a background process. iTunes will be up and running before your desktop loads even if you haven't logged in. This means that iTunes features such as Wifi Sync, AirPlay, Home Sharing, Podcast Downloading, etc will all be up and running without you having to think about them

Remote Management

You no longer need to log on to your computer to manage iTunes! iHomeServer provides multiple options for remote management. The iHomeServer Console can be run on a different computer on your network or if you are using Windows Home Server (or Windows Server 2012 Essentials) then manage iTunes from the iHomeServer addin in the remote dashboard. Alternatively, use iHomeServer's web interface to stream media, manage playlists, modify metadata, etc.

Ideal for headless servers

If you are running iTunes on a dedicated computer (workstation or server), use iHomeServer to start iTunes without any user intervention. In addition to automatically starting iTunes when your computer boots, iHomeServer provides a series of complementary features that make running a standalone iTunes server simple: Watch Folders allow you to drag and drop new media into a share on your server and have it automatically added to iTunes; DVD Ripping lets you insert a DVD into your media server and without pressing a key, have it ripped, tagged and added to iTunes; iHomeServer's Web Interface and iHomeServer's remote management console let you manage your iTunes library from a remote computer as if you were using iTunes locally

No sound card required

iTunes is meant to be run on a normal desktop. However, today’s microservers are ideal to run as a headless iTunes media server, but most do not come with sound cards. This would normally prevent you from automatically starting iTunes when the computer boots, because iTunes will present a message indicating there is a problem with your audio/video configuration. iHomeServer actively watches the iTunes process for these messages and dismisses them transparently in the background to ensure iTunes starts successfully. You can view any messages that iTunes has presented using the iHomeServer ‘Messages’ window

Add-on for WHS and Windows 2012 Essentials Dashboards

iHomeServer supports starting and stopping iTunes from the WHS Dashboard / Console. You can also view and manage all your iTunes media libraries and playlists, directly from the WHS Dashboard – creating and managing iTunes playlists, adding, removing and playing tracks – most of your day to day tasks can be performed remotely from your laptop, but controlling your WHS server’s instance of iTunes.