I’ve now installed Windows Server 2012 without a GUI a number of times. And I always seem to end up needing that GUI eventually. So, to get Windows as a feature in Windows Server, use the following command to fire up a powershell environment, entering the admin password when prompted: runas /user:administrator powershell.exe Then let’s install all the Windows Features with the word GUI in them: Get-WindowsFeature -Name *gui* | Install-WindowsFeature -Restart The server will then reboot and you’ll be looking at a login window. To remove, you can just enter the following: Get-WindowsFeature -Name *gui* | Remove-WindowsFeature -Restart
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Create A Server 2012 VM In VMware Fusion
Our friends at VMware continue to outdo themselves. The latest release of Fusion works so well with Windows Server 2013 that even I can’t screw it up. To create a virtual machine, simply open VMware Fusion and click New from the File menu. Click “Choose a disc or disc image.” Select your iso for Server 2012 and click on Open (if you have actual optical media it should have skipped this step and automatically sensed your installation media). Click Continue back at the New Virtual Machine Assistant screen. Click Continue when the Assistant properly shows the operating system and version. Enter a username, password and serial number for Windows Server…
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Defragment and Repair Exchange Information Stores
An Exchange Information Store is a database. A Standard Exchange Server can host 3 Information Store databases. Each is a Jet database and can exist at its own file path and will have a .edb file extension. You can manually defrag an Exchange database using a tool called eseutil. In this case, you’ll encounter from 5 to 20 minutes of downtime per gig of the Information Store. You can run eseutil, Eseutil can be run to scan a database to determine whether an offline defragmentation is necessary. You can run eseutil to manually determine the space that could be saved with a defrag. To do so, run eseutil with the…
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Configure Windows Server 2012 As An NTP Server
When you’re configuring a Mac to leverage an existing Windows infrastructure, having the clocks in sync is an important task. Luckily, Windows Server has been able to act as an NTP server for a long time. In this article, we’ll look at configuring Windows Server to be an NTP server for Mac and Linux clients. Note: Before you get started, or any time you’re hacking around in the registry, make sure to do a backup of your registry/SystemState! To enable NTP on Windows Server, open your favorite registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesW32TimeTimeProvidersNtpServer. From here, enter a key called Enabled as a dword with a value of 00000001. The NTP Server should look…
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Creating Users On Windows Server 2012 Using PowerShell
Scripting user creation in Windows Server is something we’ve long done using LDIF files; however, when building a system that creates users in more of a one-off capacity it’s pretty easy to script the creation process using PowerShell, piping information in from other solutions. To create a user, use the New-ADUser cmdlet. I’ve found that we usually need to populate this with a few pieces of information, including the account name (SamAccountName), the password (AccountPassword), the full name (name) enabling the account (enabled), setting the password not to expire (PasswordNeverExpires) and forcing the user to change their password when they log on (ChangePasswordAtLogon). Respectively, the following example would create user…
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Managing Windows Server 2012 Shares From Powershell
SMB cmdlets come in two modules. Before you can really use these in powershell you first need to import them. These are called SmbShare and SmbWitness, so to import the modules: Import-Module SmbShare Import-Module SmbWitness Or for short: Import-Module Smb* Once the SMB modules are imported, we’ll start by looking at what shares you’ve got on your system using Get-SmbShare: Get-SmbShare Next, we can create a new share with the minimum two pieces of information required and adding who get’s FullAccess, which is not required: New-SmbShare -Name BAK -Path E:BAK -FullAccess krypted Then we can provide a little more information if we so choose. Here, I’m going to add a…
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Use Windows Backup To Back Up Windows Server 2012
WIndows Server’s ntbackup tools have become easier and easier to use over time. But there’s no more ntbackup. Well, there’s wbadmin, which is very similar. You can still restore data by downloading ntbackups restore tool at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=974674. Windows Backup is now capable of backing up a system with the same ease of use that Apple brought to automated backups with Time Machine and Time Machine Server. In fact, providing access to only a few more options Microsoft’s tools provide access to some pretty nice options, easily configured. To get started, you’ll first need to install the Windows Backup Role. To do so, use the Add Roles and Features Wizard in…
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Managing DNS In Windows Server 2012
Previously, I covered installing the DNS role in Windows Server 2012. Once installed, managing the role is very similar to how management was done in Windows Server 2003 through 2008 R2. With the exception of how you access the tools. DNS is one of the most important services in Windows Servers, as with most other platforms. So it’s important to configure DNS. To get into the DNS Manager in 2012 Server, first open Server Manager (you might get sick of using this tool in Server 2012, similar to how my Mac Server brethren have gotten tired of it in Lion and Mountain Lion Servers. Then from Server Manager click on…
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Configure File Shares In Windows Server 2012
As I mentioned in an earlier article, the File and Storage Role is installed by default in Windows Server 2012. This means you can create a file share with a very minimal amount of work on a brand new server. To get started, as with many things regarding Server 2012, open Server Manager. From Server Manager, click on File and Storage Services in the Server Manager sidebar. Then click on Shares. From the Shares screen, click on the Shares drop-down list and then click on New Share. This will open the New Share Wizard. From here, select a type of share. For the purposes of this article, we’ll create a very…
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Adding Roles In Windows Server 2012
Out of the box a Windows Server 2012 isn’t really that helpful. But luckily, it has these things called Roles. Roles are things like Hyper-V, File Sharing, Windows Update Services, Web Server, etc. Each role then has a collection of services that it can run as well, within the Role. Roles include (borrowing from Microsoft here): Active Directory Certificate Services Overview This content provides an overview of Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) in Windows Server 2012. AD CS is the server role that allows you to build a public key infrastructure (PKI) and provide public key cryptography, digital certificates, and digital signature capabilities for your organization. Active Directory Domain Services Overview By…