Windows Server Administration

I noticed on Twitter that @winobs who runs the WindowsObserver.com website posts Google Alerts for Windows 7 on his site, so I thought I might do the same thing except for Windows Server 2008. So here they are (in no order of preference).

Microsoft updates Windows 7 SDK beta
Ars Technica – Boston,MA,USA
The Windows SDK beta for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 has been
updated. Developers, what are you waiting for? By Emil Protalinski | Last
updated …
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Q. How can I mount a virtual hard disk (VHD) file in Windows 7 or …
Windows IT Pro – Loveland,CO,USA
A. Diskpart and Disk Manager in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have native
VHD support and can be used to create and mount vhd files. …
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32-bit support optional for Server 2008 R2 Server Core
Ars Technica – Boston,MA,USA
32-bit support for Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core will have to be
installed manually since this is the first 64-bit-only operating system
that Microsoft …
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IE8 in Windows 7, and IE7 in Vista SP2 – Download Critical Patches
Softpedia – Bucharest,Romania
… Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008, for the
IE8 Beta build in Windows 7 pre-Beta and in Windows Server 2008 R2
pre-Beta, …
See all stories on this topic:

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Just a quick one today, I had a client come to me this morning with their Lenovo R61 notebook with Vista as the OS, complaining that they couldn’t get their wireless connection working. After a clean reboot the Error Dialog box that cam up said “Error Code: 1747 WLAN AutoConfig service failed to start”. So I tried to open up Event Viewer to have a look and that failed to load as well stating that the Windows Event Log Service failed to start.

So I opened up the Services MMC and tried to manually start the Windows Event Log Service and no luck, didn’t start. SO I did a bit of hunting and found that it could be related to a corrupt Windows Vista TCP/IP Winsock Catalog. So I ran the following command in the command prompt with admin privileges.

netsh winsock reset

What this does is reset the Winsock Catalog to a clean state or default configuration. After a reboot everything was fine.

Well I took the plunge and installed my copy of Windows 7 (Beta) on my Toshiba M400 Tablet Notebook last week to see how it stacked up. The install process is very simple and easy to do.

What was interesting to note was that Windows automatically created a 200mb hidden partition which is used to hold the Boot Data Configuration (BCD) and the Windows Recovery Environment and actually only uses 32Mb of the allocated 200Mb. One thing to note here is that it is very hard to remove this partition after it is created and if you do then you risk your computer not booting again!

But if you are like me and wanted to take an image of the machine so that you can put it on another machine to test as well then this “hidden partition” can cause some issues. There are ways to avoid this partition from being created and there is a great article explaining it here..

One of the first things that I was impressed with and was a common comment on Twitter was the speed at which it booted and logged in, much better than Vista in my opinion. The other thing was the task bar. Let’s say you have more than one tab open in Internet Explorer you can hover over the IE Icon in the task bar and have the tabs that you have open appear separately and you can then just click on the one that you want to open (see below)

Another little change which may throw a few people (my clients especially who LOVE change) is that Folders are now called Libraries, so you know have a Document Library, Picture Library etc etc.

Now what I found really cool was you now have the ability to Create and Attach VHD Files through Disk Management, which from an admin point of view is great because you can now attach modify VHD files.
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Just a quick one, Microsoft have released a White Paper on Windows Server 2008 R2 & Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 – Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture.

If you are using Hyper-V or are considering using it then grab this and have a read. Grab it here…..

Another day another Hyper-V expierience. This time a good one !!.

After reading Virtual PC guy’s article on the Import and Export feature of Hyper-V I thought I would give this a go. I needed to move 2 Exchange 2007 Servers, one holding the Mailstore Role and the other the Hub Transport Role, from one Hyper-V Server to another. Let me say if you ever need to do this then this way is a MUST.

First shutdown the current Virtual Machine, Select it in the “Virtual Machines” window, then on the right hand side you will see a link that say export. Click that and you will then need to select an Export Path, in my case C:\export. After you click OK a folder will be created inside that export folder and it will be the same name as the Virtual Machine that you are exporting.
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First of all HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone.

Well the new year is upon us all and for me I got back to the daily grind 5 days ago, Grrr. What awaited me on my return was 96 Desktop Computers to unpack and pack up the old ones ready to return !!! I hate this time of year. We are now heading for a number of 40 degree day here in Melbourne so I will be sweating it out this week. I hope you all had a good break (if you got one!!), I sure enjoyed my couple of weeks that I spent camping in Merimbula. My kids and wife had a great time, it was great to get away from the computer screen for a couple of weeks that is for sure.

I have a couple of new servers arriving in a week or so, so I will be stepping up my migration of Physical Servers to Virtual ones using Hyper-V. I will be letting you know how that goes and how I think the best way of going about this is. I would be interested to know how others have gone about this and their thoughts on Hyper-V.

There will be quite a few posts coming on Virtualization and the like as this is an area that I am moving toward and stacks of people in our industry are certainly looking at. MAKE SURE you pop your Name and Email Address into the ORANGE box on the right so you don’t miss the Windows Server 2008 Administrator Tips Newsletter.

A while ago I wrote about How To Add A Custom Script to a Vista Sysprepped Image, and how you can use that as a work around to prompt a sysprepped Vista Image for a Computer Name. Well a reader here pointed out that there is another way that this can be acheived and let me tell that this is VERY VERY GOOD !!!

It is called MySysprep2 and if you go to this website, you can have a read and download it. Basically you add the mysysprep.exe file to the normal sysprep location C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep, then in your unattend.xml file replace the value that you want the user to enter in with %Insert Computer Name Here%. The text can be anything you would like, that was just an example.

For example I substituted * in the ComputerName Tags with %Please Enter A Name For Your Computer%. I also added the UserAccounts Component into the oobeSystem Pass and added a domain account to the Administrators Local Group. In the Name Section of the DomainAccount I whacked this in as the value %Please Input Your User Name%.

Sysprep now prompts me twice, once for the Computer Name and once for a User Name to add to the Local Administrators Group.

This issue has caused alot of headaches for system admins for a while now, check out this TechNet Forum. It is GREAT to finally have a way to do this.

If you have not done so already, make sure you REGISTER your name and email address in the Orange Box on the right so you don’s MISS OUT on the information that the others are getting as part of the Windows 2008 Server Administration Newsletter.

As part of this Newsletter you will receive information, tips, tools, how to’s on a range of topics associated with Windows Server 2008. I am currently testing out and having my first look at TS RemoteApps (very cool!) so there will be a good run down of my experiences with using this and lot’s more.

So make your System Administrator job alot easier by keeping “In the Know” SIGN UP Today

Cheers

Daniel Anderson
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