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Hello Folks, I meet a lot of you during the last TechDays season. And a few of you asked me if there were any information or guidelines for “tuning” servers. Well I found out that an old document has been updated and is just as relevant today as it was when it was just published back in June 2009. This guide describes tuning parameters and settings that you can tweak to improve the performance and energy efficiency of your Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. It describes each setting and its potential effect to help you make an informed decision about its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals. After going through it i figured i have to tell the guys about this document. I know they will be interested. The different workloads discussed in this whitepaper are : - Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware
- Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem
- Performance Tuning for the Storage Subsystem
- Performance Tuning for Web Servers
- Performance Tuning for File Servers
- Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers
- Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Session Host (formerly Terminal Server)
- Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Gateway
- Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers
- Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (NetBench)
- Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (SPECsfs2008)
- Performance Tuning for Network Workload (NTttcp)
- Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Services Knowledge Worker Workload
- Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload
- Performance Tuning for TCP-E Workload
download the white paper. Read it, Try the different setting and make that server hmmm like the performance machine it’s meant to be. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/s.stem/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv-R2.mspx Cheers! Pierre Roman, MCITP, ITIL | Microsoft Canada Co.| Senior Technical Account Manager| pierre.roman@microsoft.com
Twitter | LinkedIn 
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Yesterday the Windows team disclosed some information on what you can expect for Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. While there are no new features set for Windows 7 SP1 there is a change to XP Mode available for Windows 7 Professional and up. Until now your computer needed to support hardware assisted virtualization for XP Mode to run but that has changed. XP Mode will now run on all CPUs! This is great for those people with 2+ year old computers that have the horsepower to run Windows 7 but don’t have the CPU extensions, or the BIOS support to enable hardware assisted virtualization. You can get the bits here.. The more exciting news (to me anyway) were the announcements around Server 2008 R2 SP1. There are two big new features that will be released with this service pack… RemoteFX is a technology (from the Calista acquisition in 2008) that give remote workers using Remote Desktop Services (aka Terminal Services) the full Windows Aero desktop environment, support for full motion video, Silverlight apps and 3D applications. You’ll be able to extend the same experience to users with thin clients accessing a VM on Hyper-V R2 as they would get on a full featured PC. Dynamic Memory is a technology that will allow you to dynamically allocate memory to VMs running on a Hyper-V R2 host. Now those of you with experience with ESX might think this is like memory overcommit but it is different. In a nutshell both technologies allow you to assign more memory to your VMs than the host has. For example I can start 5 VMs each with 4GB of RAM eventhough the host only has 16GB of RAM. Memory Overcommit is different in that it uses paging files for that extra address space. As you are aware paging has a negative impact on performance. I am simplifying but that’s basically it. Today, on a Hyper-V host when you assign a VM 4GB of memory and start it, it locks out the 4GB of address space on the host for that VM. Now that VM might only be utilizing 1GB meaning that the other 3GB is essentially idle until the VM requires it. With Dynamic Memory we will still assign the VM 4GB of RAM however it will only lock the address space the VM is utilizing leaving the rest available for other VMs. When a VMs memory utilization increases, it will draw from that pool and when memory utilization decreases it will release it back into the pool. Again I am simplifying things but that is how it works in a nutshell. What this means is that you’ll be able to use the physical memory in your Hyper-V hosts more efficiently without impacting performance in your production environments. You can see a demo of RemoteFX and find out more about these changes at http://www.desktopvirtualizationhour.com 
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The R2’s are out the door with the release of Hyper-V R2, SCVMM R2 and MDOP R2. As with the new release of any technology you are probably wondering how it works, how to use it and how it is going to make your life easier. Well I am happy to share that my friend Mitch Tulloch and the team at MSPress have been working hard and have written a FREE e-book covering everything from server to local and remote desktop virtualization, virtualization management and what the cloud brings to the table. It is a great read an I highly suggest you download a copy. It’s free, it’s 15MB and you can get it in XPS of PDF formats! Also be sure to check out Mitch’s site with free e-books on other topics and the unofficial Windows 7 Resource Kit support site. 
Download XPS Version Download PDF Version 
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 Last week, in a special edition of the TechNet Flash, I wrote about how you can get Windows 7 before the General Availability date by registering for TechDays 2009 before August 19th. If you do so, or have already registered, we will activate your TechNet Plus Direct subscription within a couple of weeks. This means that you will not only be registered to attend Microsoft Canada’s premier series of technical readiness events in one of 7 cities across Canada, but you will also get Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 before the General Availability date of October 22 so you can start working and becoming familiar with them early.
Since the Flash was sent out, I received a number of emails regarding what is included in the TechNet Plus Direct subscription and how you will access Windows 7 and the other software. The TechNet Plus Direct Subscription is an online one where you get access to all of the bits through the TechNet Subscriber Downloads site. You can find out more information on TechNet Plus subscriptions here. The list of products included in the TechNet Plus Direct subscription can be found by going to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/subscriptions/bb892756.aspx. Even though Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 might not be listed, rest assured that RTM versions of both are available for download right now. In terms of how you will access the TechNet Plus Direct content, you will receive an email from the TechNet Plus Direct team within 10 business days of August 19th with your subscriber ID and information how to activate your subscription online with your Windows LiveID. Once you have completed the activation process, you will have access to all of the TechNet Plus Direct content for a year. You can then download the ISO file for Windows 7, get your product key from the Subscriber Downloads site, burn your DVD media, and then use it to install Windows 7 on your computer. Remember, the only way to get your TechNet Plus Direct subscription activated early is by registering for TechDays before August 19th. If you register after August 19th, we will activate your subscription only after you have attended TechDays 2009. Register for TechDays 2009 Now and get Windows 7. Damir 
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Hot off the presses! Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have hit the RTM Milestone! From the Windows 7 team blog… I am pleased to announce that Windows 7 has RTM’d! As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM. Then, it goes though all the validation checks required for RTM including having all languages of that build completed. If all the validation checks have passed – sign-off for RTM can occur. Today after all the validation checks were met, we signed off and declared build 7600 as RTM. Continue reading… And from the Windows Server blog… The acronym (RTM) stands for Release to Manufacturing, and it means this latest release of Windows Server 2008 R2 is now blessed by engineering as ready for the manufacturing process. We're talking final code. Sun shining, birds singing, children dancing in the streets. With evaluation software available for download in the first half of August and the full product available to customers with Software Assurance in the second half of August, RTM is more than just an engineering milestone. Occurring in lock-step with the release of the Windows 7 RTM, these two platforms are now ready for our partners to start testing and installing on their hardware. And that lock-step isn't a coincidence, it's a design goal. Customers using Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 in their enterprises has been Microsoft's intent from the first day programmers touched fingers to keyboards. Continue reading… So with those two announcements the first question is “When and where can I get it?” The answer. A big thank you too all the beta testers, without your testing and feedback this would not be possible! 
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Wow they are busy down in Redmond! Yesterday Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 was released and today Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 were completed! I’ve been doing some digging to find out what is new and noteworthy as well as what resources are available. So what’s new in SP2? First and foremost this release coincides with the expiration of the Windows Vista SP1 blocker utility. If you have this in place you will now be offered Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update. Windows Vista: - Feature Pack for Wireless, which contains support for Bluetooth v2.1 and Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration. Bluetooth v2.1 is the most recent specification for Bluetooth wireless technology.
- SP2 includes ability to record data to Blu-Ray Disc media.
- SP2 includes Windows Search 4.0, which builds on Microsoft’s search technology with improved indexing and search relevance. It also helps find and preview documents, e-mail (including signed e-mail messages), music files, photos, and other items on the computer.
Windows Server 2008: - SP2 provides the Hyper-V virtualization environment as a fully integrated feature of Windows Server 2008, including one free instance with Windows Server 2008 Standard, four free instances with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and an unlimited number of free instances with Windows Server 2008 Datacenter.
- SP2 improves backwards compatibility for Terminal Server license keys. Windows Server 2008 changed the licensing key from 512 bytes to 2,048 bytes which caused clients using older Terminal Server versions to fail. SP2 allows legacy license keys on Citrix applications to work with Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server.
- SP2 increases the authentication options for WebDAV redirector, enabling Microsoft Office users greater flexibility when authenticating custom applications using the WebDAV redirector
And in relation to both Windows Vista and Server 2008, SP2 provides an improved power management (both on the server and the desktop), which includes the ability to manage these settings via Group Policy. For more information on SP2 for Vista and Server 2008 please see: 
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Project: K-12 Network Overhaul The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. A private K-12 school was running on a Windows Server 2000 network with an infrastructure that had been neglected and was falling apart. Viruses, spyware, 10mb hubs, and lack of backups plagued the system. The schools data was at risk. The old server (P4 1.6 white box workstation) had bad sector and disk write errors filling the event log every 30 minutes. Users had almost full rights, and there was no internet filtering. Teacher data was accessible to students due to poor security. The school only receives partial funding from the government, and had minimal budget for IT, so I and a few others volunteered to do a comprehensive analysis on the computer systems. Recommendations turned into implementation plans and I ended up the project lead and primary implementer. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! I replaced the whole domain and file system with multiple Windows 2008 servers running virtualized on a Dell 2900. We made heavy use of GPO's, folder redirection, automation, and role based access control. Utilizing a product called USBDLM combined with software restriction policies, we were able to restrict usage of USB flash drives. Automated scripts were setup to create AD accounts, profiles, and group memberships based on user data from the enrollment system. Utilizing MDT with WDS we built HW independent desktop image (that took some digging!). Windows Server Backup was utilized along with Symantec to backup all data to one tape. A Barracuda AD integrated web filter system protects kids/teachers on the web. 150+ hours of my time later, it was done. The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? The school immediately benefited from increased stability, security, and sustainability. We were pleased by very thankful teachers, administration, and school society. Some unhappy students (no more games!). Protection from spyware, malware and pornography/violence on the web ensures compliance with government policies and confident parents. A solid backup solution for servers and administration PC's has released nerves and tension about data loss. Users were very excited with Office 2007, and other software upgrades. Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. In the analysis report, I made a note that the current server room was very dusty and that the old backup tapes were not standing upright. This got a laugh at the school board presentation, as it was a random tidbit between things like: Drive's failing, and Impending failure. While fine tuning the software restriction policies, I wanted to prevent users from storing executables in various profile locations. Not realizing that .lnk (shortcut) was in the default executable policy, I ended up with students not being able to launch Word from their start menus. Oops! The big highlight was creating a custom policy and profile for a student with visual (among other) impairments. When the student logged on the new system the first time. he was so excited, and it made all the hours feel worth it. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Windows/Web Client Web Technologies Collaboration Management Platform Security Systems 2008 Server, IIS7, FSRM, WDS, WSUS, MDT Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=236
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Project: Welaptega Reborn The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. This client based in Halifax was facing enormous challenges trying to keep their infrastructure system up and running. I found out about their issues when I visit their CEO at his cottage and he couldn't even connected remotely to his own email/shared folders. They had 1 x server (SBS 2003) and 2 x server (win 2003) that were totally unbalanced. The SBS server had almost 1 Terabytes of data on it without having any functional backup. Their hard drives were almost full 95% used. However, another server had only 5% used. They did not have any maintenance contract with any IT firm, only Time & Material. Also, everyone had the domain administrator password handy in case they were having issues. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! We sat down and presented a full scale solution by running SBS 2008 and Hyper-V combined with OCS technologies. Their servers count went from 3 to 6 physicals and 2 virtuals. We even throw on top DPM and SharePoint solutions for keeping documents in one location and secured. I have also added a Blackberry server with OCS functionality on their desktops/notebooks and on their Blackberries as well. I have also removed the Symantec Anti-Virus that wasn't updated anymore for the total Forefront solution (Servers, Clients, SharePoint, OCS and Exchange). The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? Today, the client is pleased with the results; in fact they never had any issues since the system is up and running couple weeks before XMAS 2008. We still have some little bits of configuration to complete before presenting them with a maintenance contract for 3 years. We have been helping them since the installation at no charge. Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. We strongly believed that Microsoft came up with brilliant solutions for the Small and Medium businesses (SBS 2008, OCS, SharePoint v3, Forefront, DPM) and they work perfectly all together. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Windows/Web Client Virtualization Office Productivity Unified Communication Management Platform Security Systems, Network Infrastructure Systems, SharePoint Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=112 
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A while back Ruth did an interview with Cameron McKay about an upcoming infrastructure project he was in the planning stages on. While the planning is done and the implementation also complete, I thought it was time to revisit with Cameron and talk about how things went. Turns out Cam was one step ahead and posted an entry on his blog which we are cross posting here. ------------------------- And here we are.... it's March 15th, I'm now 25 Years old, and the largest infrastructure project of my career to date is wrapping up. Now, I originally planned to have all work completed in a weekend... I may have been off by a week or two. Not a result of unknown factors, but delays in setting up systems and the occasional hour or two of sleep. February 27th at 10PM my Team and I started by redirecting all web facing sites to the ubiquitous "planned downtime" graphic to alert clients that the geeks are hard at work somewhere... :) First up on the task list was to modify our Cisco switches and firewalls and setup 10 new VLAN's. The tricky part here is that the Cisco VOIP servers also need to be re-IP addressed and this is where we had to take our time. While our contractors were busy checking everything with the telephony systems, our team was busy setting up the base AD Infrastructure (DNS, DHCP) and getting ready to deploy all our new servers. What servers exactly? - Windows Server 2008 /w Hyper-V
- Exchange Server 2007 SP1
- SQL Server 2008
- IIS7
- Team Foundation Server 2008
- Office Communications Server 2008 R2
- Groove Server
- ForeFront Client Security
- SharePoint Office Server 2007
Not to mention: - WSUS
- NAP
- Certificate Services
- Rights Management
- File Screening
And if that wasn't enough... We rolled out Vista Enterprise and Office 2007 to 100 workstations and also deployed the latest Blackberry Enterprise Server. I also felt the need to deploy the latest version of GFI Faxmaker to handle our some 300 faxes a day at the office. And of course, it's all managed by System Center. So around 2am on Saturday morning all the network changes were completed and the base AD deployment completed. At this point, we have taken a flat network and diced it up into 10 VLAN's, a DMZ, and 4 Windows domains. I'm still pretty excited and pushing through the night. Next up was taking all our existing physical and virtual servers and switching the IP's. This took us until around 6am... We took a coffee break and then moved onto deploying Exchange Server 2007. About this time I realized that I haven't slept yet and shrugged it off... I'm an IT Pro. At 9am we brought our SQL Servers online and IIS 7 web farm. My network team was working on all the ACL's and settings for the DMZ to make sure that we were ultra secure, as this is a Fortune 18 we work for and information security is paramount. Our developers came in around 10am to start migrating content from the old network and get the business up and running again. One challenge here is that there was no connectivity from the old LAN to the new network, so terabyte hard drives were used to move all the files. This took the better part of the day to get all the files over and onto the new servers. Once this was done, the Dev's could start configuring all the new database servers and IIS sites. I had our network team leave the edge network accessible from the internal LAN to make it as easy as possible for the development team to get access and complete the migration. Around 6pm on Saturday evening the Boss realized that I hadn't been to sleep yet and "suggested" that I go over to the hotel and get a few hours sleep. I slept from 7 until 11 and then showed back up at the office to continue working on the deployment. Sunday morning we started our LT deployment of Vista and Office 2007 to all the desktops. I was left configuring Exchange 2007 and the Blackberry Server and a half dozen other servers. We were having some issues with migrating the data. As it turns out, moving everything onto SQL 2008 and IIS7 is a big deal. Who would have thought? At this point, the comment of "backing out" came up. I didn't like the sound of that... and the discussion became a pow-wow a couple hours later. I'll spare everyone the discussion, but we decided to push forward and not roll back. Forgetting that all the workstations were already converted to Vista and on the new network, it would of been about 6 hours work to bring the old LAN back up. Around 2am on Monday morning I had my first real challenge of the deployment. The Exchange Hub Transport and Edge Servers suddenly stopped working. The EdgeSync connectors were all there and all the settings were correct and by-the-book.... but still, I couldn't send or receive email. So, 6 hours from the start of business, email was down. This was my worse nightmare. After a couple hours of troubleshooting and rebuilding the EdgeSync, I had email working again. Come Monday morning, we had core systems online and our CRM application was functional but none of the file shares or printers were up. Throughout the day we were busy assisting the developers, as their apps are all client facing and most of my Infrastructure changes were completed. Again, sent over to the hotel late Monday afternoon for a few hours sleep. Back at the office come 2AM. At this period, I'm feeling like the biggest geek in the world... and loving it. Tuesday I had the file shares and printers online. The task for the next couple days was to import all the old email from our 5.5 server and load it into each users new mailbox. This was a tedious task that took us until Friday to complete. Why? Lot's of old email... Over the weekend we brought ForeFront Client Security online. This is probably my most favorite piece of the new Infrastructure. All workstations and servers were now protected. The following week we were tweaking group policies and completing the configuration of all our web portals and databases. Fast forward to today. It's Sunday March 15th... and we have the most modern network in the company. Built for High Availability and Security from the ground up using the latest Microsoft technologies. I am very proud to say that I was apart of this great project and it has definitely been a fun and exciting ride. The best part is that 90% of the Datacenter is virtualized on Hyper-V. I'm a huge fan of the technology, and the benefits it provides our business in the DR / BC areas. It was interesting to see the entire IT Team, all 9 of us, pull together and stand unified behind this project. Sure, it's difficult and I've only had 20 hours total sleep in two weeks, but this is what I live for. We now have a platform to work off of that will drive the business for the next 6 Years. Was it as easy as I thought? NO. Would I do it again knowing what I know now? YES. Why? Because it had to be done. Our business is very competitive and we were working off technology that was 10 to 15 years old. More time was spent on maintenance and workarounds, then innovation. And how do I feel? Great. I slept in this morning and looking forward to getting back into the office tomorrow to work on my new state-of-the-art Infrastructure. All 100% Microsoft software based. ------------------------------ You can read more about the project at Cameron’s blog! 
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In my previous post on our EnergizeIT activities out east and why there were not readily apparent on the mass mailing, I mentioned that we were going to a number of cities, including Halifax, Moncton, Fredericton and St. John’s. I neglected to include final Registration links – so I thought I would take a moment to give them to you here. UserGroup session: Future of the platform. Learn more and Register (Moncton, NB) UserGroup session: Future of the platform. Learn more and Register (Fredericton, NB) UserGroup session: Future of the platform. Learn more and Register (St. John’s, NL) Special Note: Halifax Venue change and CONTENT change. 
I wanted to call out a BIG thank you to our friends at the Nova Scotia Community College in Halifax / Dartmouth. We have been making a point of visiting them whenever we pop in to Halifax – great bunch of faculty as well as some awesome students. We were originally having difficulty sourcing a sizeable venue for Halifax and they saved the day by offering up their Presentation Theatre at the Dartmouth Waterfront Campus to support our UserGroup event. This is fantastic news! We have been reaching out and talking with CIPS BlueNose, ITANS and the local Dev and IT Pro usergroups to ask them to let their membership know of the changes. If you are in the Halifax/Dartmouth area and would like to attend – use the registration link below! Learn more and Register (Halifax, NS) I also mentioned a Content Change to go along with this. After talking with the local community and discussing it with the team, we’ve decided to change up the content from the smaller UserGroup session (future of the platform) to the larger and broader EnergizeIT session (from the client to the cloud) that is taking place in the larger event stops. We feel this is the right thing to do in order to reach the broader interest of the community which spans academic, infrastructure, developer and IT manager. How will we know if this is the right thing to do? You’ll tell us with your feedback/email as well as by your registration numbers! This event is FREE to attend and will be covering off technologies of our platform (Windows 7, Live On-Line Services – Wave 3, Microsoft Online Services and our new Azure services in the cloud) and how you can prepare for them today in order to discover what is possible. This event is also an excellent opportunity to connect with like minded individuals who share a passion for Technology in order to strengthen you local network of technical resources. I encourage you to sign up, reserve your spot and share this broadly with your colleagues – spaces are filling fast! 
IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
My Shared Bookmarks
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I had posted this entry on Thelazyadmin.com but after reading a comment asking about a previous post I thought I’d throw it up here as well!  A few weeks back we posted an entry on how to boot from a Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 VHD. Booting from VHD is new to Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 but one of the caveats was you needed a “clean” VHD to boot from. There is a very simple way to create this VHD using an open source tool available on the MSDN Code Gallery called WIM2VHD.
WIM2VHD is a command line tool that converts the WIM image into a VHD you can use to boot off. It does have a few requirements… - The prep machine has to be running Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, either of which could be running in a Hyper-V VM
- A Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 installation media
- The Windows 7 Automated Install Kit Beta
There are a number of switches you will need to know as well in order to create the VHD file… - /wim: specifies the path to the WIM file
- /sku: which version (ServerStandard, Ultimate etc…) You can also use the SkuIndex if you retrieved that with the ImageX tool
- /vhd: specifies the path and the name of the VHD to be created
- /size: specifies the size of the VHD in MB
- /disktype: specifies the type of disk, Dynamic or Fixed
There are some additional switches which you can find on the WIM2VHD documentation that allow you to further customize the VHD to be created. So let’s say we wanted to create a Windows 7 Ultimate VHD on a 40GB fixed disk; we’d use the following command: cscript wim2vhd.wsf /wim:X:\sources\install.wim /sku:ULTIMATE /vhd:C:\Win7Ultimate.vhd /size:40960 /disktype:Fixed Or if we wanted to create a Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard VHD on a 40GB dynamically expanding disk we’d use the following command: cscript wim2vhd.wsf /wim:X:\sources\install.wim /sku:SERVERSTANDARD /vhd:C:\ServerStandardR2.vhd /size:40960 /disktype:Dynamic You can download WIM2VHD and the release documents here. 
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Hello folks,
I was reading Mohamud’s post and it made me think of my own lab environment. I had been thinking about writing about it for a while now, but something always came up. So, this morning I gathered the documentation i had kept when i setup my environment (and yes for those who doubt, i do document my setups) and actually got to it.
When i started my preparation for the EnergizeIT demos, and for other screen casts I am planning. I realized I needed to rebuild the domain setup for my lab. I also wanted to check out a few scenarios discussed with TechDays attendees during the “Streamlining Administration of Your Deployments of Active Directory Using Group Policy Preferences, Templates, and Scripting” session.
So I started looking for a spare machine for the DC. I know, I can do all this virtualized, but I wanted to setup a permanent infrastructure I can work with for the long haul. Therefore I was looking for a DC, I could setup in my wiring closet in my home office and leave it there.
I found some pieces from different computers in storage (yes, I’m a pack rat... I never throw out anything.) an ATX case, an ASUS P4B motherboard, a Pentium 4 processor (2.2GHz) and 768MB of memory (1x512 + 1x256) and an old DVD reader. The only part I had to source outside was the HHD. For that I bought a 250GB drive, and I was good to go.
As you can guess the hardware platform is fairly weak. So, a core installation should be perfect, small footprint and more resources dedicated to what it is needed for.
I was off to the races. Booted from the DVD of Windows 2008 Enterprise Server x86, and I proceeded with the installation. I will spare you the details of the initial installation, I believe that most of us can click next... ;)
Ok, now I have a core server. WOOOOHOOOO!!!!
But, at this point, it does nothing!!!!
Here comes the part that is fun. How do I turn this brick into something useful? What will I need it for? Hmmm... Planning… Something I should spend more time doing. Anyway, I need the following:
- An Active Directory Domain controller
- A File server
- A DHCP and DNS servers
Ok. Now that I knew what I needed, I proceeded with the configuration
Find interface index and set IP address
Before anything else i needed to establish connectivity. The following command identified the interfaces currently installed.
netsh interface ipv4 show interface
This returned:
Idx Met MTU State Name
--- --- ----- ----------- -------------------
2 50 1500 connected Local Area Connection
1 50 4294967295 connected Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1
I needed to apply the changes to the idx= 2 interface.
netsh interface ipv4 set address name="2" source=static address="192.168.1.50" mask="255.255.255.0" gateway="192.168.1.1"
now that I have an IP address, I need to define name resolution. Since I will be setting up a DNS server on this box later I configured the DNS settings to point to the following
- 127.0.0.1 (local host)
- 206.248.154.22 (my ISP DNS)
netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver "Local Area Connection" 127.0.0.1
netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver "Local Area Connection" 206.248.154.22 index=2
Enter activation key & Activate Server
In order to enter the proper product key (which I forgot do during the installation) and to activate my server i executed the SLMGR.VBS script from the c:\windows\system32 directory:
cscript slmgr.vbs -ipk ABCDE-FGHIJ-KLMNO-PQRST-UVWXY (enter a new product key)
cscript slmgr.vbs -ato (Activate the server)
Enable automatic updates
To verify the current setting, type:
cscript scregedit.wsf /AU /v
To enable automatic updates, type:
cscript scregedit.wsf /AU 4 (not “/4” like I’ve seen it everywhere documented on the net.)
Rename the computer
To rename the computer from “WIN-GT7XU399GSZ” to “CENTRAL”, type:
Netdom renamecomputer win-gt7xu399gsz /NewName:Central
Restart the computer
I needed to restart the server in order to have the new name active:
Shutdown /r /t 0
Once the server is restarted, it’s now time to install the DNS role, the DHCP role and the Active Directory Domain Services role.
Install DNS service
The command to install the DNS Role is:
start /w ocsetup DNS-Server-Core-Role
Active Directory Domain Services role and create a Domain Controller
The dcpromo command in a server core need to be accompanied by an unattended text file since the dcpromo graphical interface cannot be displayed.
The unattend.txt Content is:
[DCINSTALL]
AutoConfigDNS=Yes
DomainNetBiosName=Homenet
NewDomainDNSName=homenet.local
ReplicaOrNewDomain=Domain
NewDomain=Forest
ForestLevel=3
DomainLevel=3
SafeModeAdminPassword=PassW0rd12#
RebootOnCompletion=No
The dcpromo command is
dcpromo /unattend:c:\unattend.txt
I specified “RebootOnCompletion=No” in my unattend.txt file since i want to validate that no error occurred during the dcpromo process. I restarted the server after the verification using the following command.
Shutdown /r /t 0
Once the Domain controller is created and that that server has rebooted, I needed to enable a few items:
| Enable remote desktop |
SCregEdit.wsf /ar 0 |
| Enable Remote Management |
WinRM quickconfig |
| Enable firewall for remote management |
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Administration" new enable=yes |
Enabling the Remote Administration firewall rules allows pretty much any MMC to connect. However, there may be situations where you only want to allow certain MMCs to connect for remote administration. Not every MMC snap-in has a firewall group, here are those that do:
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MMC Snap-in |
Rule Group |
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Event Viewer |
Remote Event Log Management |
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Services |
Remote Service Management |
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Shared Folders |
File and Printer Sharing |
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Task Scheduler |
Remote Scheduled Tasks Management |
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Reliability and Performance |
“Performance Logs and Alerts” and “File and Printer Sharing” |
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Disk Management |
Remote Volume Management |
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Windows Firewall with Advanced Security |
Windows Firewall Remote Management |
You need to enable these on the DC firewall in order to allow the MMC to connect across the network. To do so, use the following command:
Netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=“<rule group>” new enable=yes
Where <rule group> is the name in the above table.
Install DHCP server
To install the DHCP server on the DC I simply installed the role, set the service to start automatically and started it using the following command:
start /w ocsetup DHCPServerCore
sc config dhcpserver start= auto
net start dhcpserver
Install File Services role
The last role I needed installed is the File service role. This one installed by using:
start /w ocsetup FRS-Infrastructure
Done!
My Core DC is now installed and ready to assist me in testing new scenarios and to build my demos. The only thing remaining is to spin up a Vista or another Windows 2008 box so i can use the management tools to manage my DC remotely.
I hope this is useful for you. If you have scenarios you would like us to try out don’t hesitate to contact me. Now that I have a proper lab.... ;)
Cheers!
Pierre Roman, MCSE, ITIL| Microsoft Canada Co.| IT Pro Advisor | pierre.roman@microsoft.com
phone: 613-212-2370 | mobile: 613-715-2311
IT Pro blog | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn 
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I met Mohamud Ashoor in my travels to Vancouver at various VanTUG events and we regularly chat on IM as well. A few weeks back he was telling me about his home lab setup and how he uses it to sharpen his skills, keep up with technology. In our discussions the topic of a blog post came up as Mohamud has quite the setup. Between Hyper-V, ESXi, Windows Mobile and everything in between. Take a read and let me know about your lab or how you keep up with technology!
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Over the past few years I have been working on simulating enterprise level networks in my home lab. The idea was simple. Learn new technologies and at the same time test complex and difficult migrations in a lab before doing it in production. At the earlier days, I started working with Connectix Virtual PC which later became MS Virtual PC as well as VMware Workstation. I have tested these products on my desktop. Virtualization became a mainstream technology and I remember getting a free promotional copy of Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise Edition which later became a free product. I built a lab around Virtual Server 2005 and created some test labs. Microsoft has some step by step instructions on how to build a two node cluster using Virtual Server 2005: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/virtualserver/deploy/cvs2005.mspx
That was one of the labs I created for testing. Others included AD migrations, SQL migrations, Exchange migrations and client operating systems. I was even running Windows 98 SE in a lab to be able to update my Casio Watch, the first MP3 wrist player: http://www.gadgetcentral.com/casiomp3_intro.htm
With the release of Windows Server 2008, I've started to rebuild the entire lab and replace some of the legacy components. I built a lab with a Hyper-V server running AD and DNS, an ESXi server running some Linux and Windows environments and my desktop which is on Windows Vista 32bit and manages the Hyper-V and ESXi environments with the Hyper-V Manager and the VMware Infrastructure Client.
The desktop and the Hyper-V server are within the same domain as well as some downloaded test versions of SCE 2007, SCVMM2008, etc. Microsoft has tons of VHD files that you can evaluate and test high availability features of products without the need of purchasing expensive hardware. The majority of these VHDs were created for Virtual Server 2005 and therefore you would have to convert them to run in Hyper-V which is simple to do. It will mostly require the removal of VM Additions and installing the Integrations Services. An example of one of the images I've downloaded is found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/granth/archive/2008/11/03/converting-vs2010-ctp-to-hyper-v.aspx
If your environment uses Visual Studio Team System 2008, another useful image for testing is the current VHD file which doesn't expire until Dec 31st 2009: http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/brian/archive/2008/12/24/happy-holidays-and-look-what-santa-s-brought.aspx
In my current home lab, I have the following domains:
· TrueG.local (a lab built for my own testing and migrations)
· Contoso.com (VHDs from Microsoft)
· NWTraders.msft (VHDs from Microsoft)
· LitwareInc.com (VHDs from Microsoft)
On the ESXi server, I have a Windows Server 2008 Core edition that provides DHCP services to any client that requires a Dynamic IP. There are more test machines in Hyper-V and the ESXi servers than what is displayed in the diagram.
I completed the SCVMM 2008 setup in the lab this past weekend and divided it into two, the SCVMM2008 server / admin console and the Self-Service Portal. Both are running on virtual machines under Hyper-V and ESXi. The Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer is a great tool to use before and after the deployment. As many others have experienced, I don't always read the entire deployment documentation and after the SCVMM2008 setup, my Hyper-V had a status of "Needs Attention". Luckily it was blogged on TechNet and only required two updates on the Hyper-V server and a quick reboot: http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2008/10/26/hyper-v-server-needs-attention-after-scvmm-2008-rtm-install.aspx
Continuing on my learning path there are few more features that I would like to test and implement in this lab:
- Running Dell Open Manage Server Administrator on server core (the Hyper-V server). I haven't found a way to run the Dell Open Manage in a server core environment and I'm not sure if it is supported.
- Install Dell OpenManage Management Pack for SCE Operations Manager on SCE 2007 Virtual Server. I want to monitor CPU, Memory, Storage, etc., from the Hyper-V server core server and pass the info to the SCE2007 virtual server.
- Enable Network Load Balancing and/or NIC teaming in the Hyper-V server core server.
- And try 2008 R2 of course….
 Mohamud Ashoor is an IT Professional from Vancouver. He is the network administrator of TP Systems Ltd., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. TP Systems is software and IT services company focused on government, health care providers and public service organizations. Mohamud works with various Server 2003 and Server 2008 technologies (Exch2007, TFS2008, SQL 2005/2008, TS 2003/2008, Hyper-V, Citrix XenApp, etc.) as well as delivering a broad user experience from the desktop to the data centre. He is very passionate about technology and always delighted to see how it enables people become more productive!
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With all the news about the release of the first public look at Windows 7 something might have slipped past you and that was the release of Windows Server 2008 R2. As you might imagine there are quite a few upgrades and improvements and there is a great four page document that covers the Top 10 IT Pro Tasks Made Easier with Server 2008 R2 as well as a PowerPoint that gives a Windows Server 2008 R2 Overview and finally a Windows Server 2008 R2 Reviewers Guide that covers off everything new and different. Probably the biggest changes, or at least the most important ones in my mind being a virtualization guy, are those related to Hyper-V 2.0. During TechDays one of the most often asked questions was around QuickMigration vs. VMotion and the associated downtime with with a Quick Migration vs. a VMotion migration. Well Hyper-V 2.0 now supports Live Migration which provides seemless migration of VMs between hosts in a cluster with no loss of connectivity, no downtime! Finally I can answer that question, now all I need is the hardware to demo it! There are a couple of other new bits in there as well, like support for 32 logical processors (v1 supports 24), hot add/remove of storage so you no longer have to take a VM down to add another VHD to it and the ability to boot from a VHD allowing you to mount a VM on physical hardware if necessary. Lastly is something called Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) which takes advantage of new processor features to reduce the load on the hypervisor and increase performance. I haven’t looked into this too much to see what CPU requirements there are or how it works but I will be attending a Windows Server 2008 R2 Airlift in Redmond after TechDays Vancouver and you can be sure I’ll be sharing everything I learn there! Oh I almost forgot, for those of you using Microsoft Hyper-V Server, there is an R2 version of that as well that adds the same support and new features as above but also adds Windows Server Failover Clustering to the mix allowing you to add high availability and Live Migration capabilities to your free Hyper-V Server deployments! You can grad the Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta here and be sure to also check out the Virtualization Team Blog for more. 
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There is a little battle going on right now in Twitterland between Mark Relph (@mrelph) and Rick Claus (@Rickster_CDN) on who's going to install Windows 7 on their Dell Latitude E4300 notebook first. Looks to me that Mark is winning but that's now why I'm writing this post. I'm writing it because I know that many of you have a TechNet Plus subscription that you may have received at TechDays (free for 6-months for attending TechDays), or purchased because it provides amazing value in being able to evaluate MS software without any time restrictions. Plus, you also get a couple of free support incidents worth the price of the subscription. In any case, no matter how you got it, log on to Subscriber Downloads right now!! Why, you may ask? If you have been waiting with baited breath for Windows 7 to come out so that you can play with it, wait no more. It is available on Subscriber Downloads right now!! Not only that, you can also download Windows Server 2008 R2 beta as well so that you can test out both the client and server piece of the next version of Windows. In case you're wondering, yes, it is downloading to my machine as I write this post. We'll keep you informed on more details and links on Windows 7 as they become available. In the meantime, if you are a TechNet Plus subscriber, download it, install it on a test machine (don't use it in production, please) and let me know what you think by posting a comment on the blog or sending me an email at damirb@microsoft.com. Cheers....Damir 
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