Microsoft – The Cloud Eh!?

Windows 10 Connecting to a VPN

by Rick ByrneMay 28, 2016May 27, 2016Leave a comment

It used to be a simple task to connect to a VPN with a couple of mouse clicks, but something that has bothered me for some time is the amount of time it takes in Windows 10 with the new UI. Today I finally just got tired of all the clicking to connect, and then the same to disconnect.

I did a quick Google search and most of them required the use of BAT files, which is ok… But not if you have many different VPNs you may want to connect too.

So during this search I came across rasphone.exe, this is located at “C:\Windows\System32\rasphone.exe”

All you need to do is create a shortcut to this on your desktop

Change the Icon to what you would like

Even go ahead and pin it to your taskbar, or start menu, up to yourself at this point.

But when you launch this shortcut you now get a dialog where you can select any of your configured VPNs to connect.

Once you are connected, if you launch the shortcut again, you can disconnect.

If you do want to pin it to always one connection you can use the shortcut to add some switches.

like this, and it will always launch V – VPN connection.

But for me the simple shortcut does the job for what I need.

Just wanted to share, if this doesn’t work for you more options to exist, and they work just as well.

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange 2013 Beta

by Rick ByrneJune 10, 2013June 10, 2013Leave a comment

Everyone who uses Veeam today is familiar with the product Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange. It has made item level recovery a dream; you almost wish people would delete email, just to use it….. no not really, but that is how simplified the process is. Version 6.5 supports Microsoft Exchange 2010, however today you can get the Beta for version 7 that supports both Microsoft Exchange 2010 and 2013. The beta works great; it will be fully integrated with Veeam Backup and Replication v7. With the beta not everything works as seamless when it comes to mounting the backup directly to the Veeam Explorer console, but it will when it is fully released. If you would like to download the Beta head over to Veeam and get started.

What has the new version brought to the table?

· Support for Exchange 2013

· Improved engine of restoring items back to the Exchange Server

What Features do you get?

· Explorer like interface that allows you to look into your Exchange Backups and locate things quickly with a familiar interface.

· Search capabilities across one or many mailboxes; quickly find what you are looking for.

· Ability to export to a PST file with no commands to run, export to MSG files to store in a folder, or send as attachments.

· Recover to the original mailbox or a different one.

· No Agents! For backup or restores

· No need to restore the backup

· No special backup, if you already have Exchange 2013 backups you can even use them. Even if the backups came from another source. You just need to point the tool to the Exchange Database File (EDB)

Beta Requirements

· Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5

· Microsoft Windows 2008 or later (64-bit)

· Microsoft Exchange 2010 or 2013

· Microsoft Outlook 2010 or later 64-bit, only if you want to export PST

Install

**To install the v7 Veeam Explorer you will need to uninstall the previous version.

Go to the Control Panel, and launch “Program and Features” and remove “Veeam Explorer for Exchange”

Extract the files from “Veeam_Explorer_for_Exchange_7.0.0.481” you should now be able to execute “VeeamExplorerForExchange.msi”

The first screen you will see is the welcome screen, click “Next”

Accept the “EULA”

Choose your install location.

At this point you are ready to install

Within a few seconds the install is complete.

Now the real work begins, Restore time

With the beta version like I mentioned above you need to do a couple of extra steps. Please remember these extra steps are just for the beta, and when it is fully released you will not have to do this.

Open up the Veeam Backup & Replication console. In the left window expand “Backups” and click on “Disk”, in the right window you will now see all your backups. Expand the disk that contains your Exchange 2013 backup. Right click the backup and select “Restore Guest File (Windows)”. This will mount the backup to your Backup Server. In my setup the location is “C:\VeeamFLR\Exchange02”.

At this point you should see the “Restore Wizard” pick the restore point you would like to recover data from.

Click “Next” and enter in a restore reason if you would like.

Click “Finish” and wait a few moments while the backup mounts to your server.

At this point you should see the following screen. In the ribbon at the top of the screen you will see “Exchange Items” we are now going to click that and it will launch the Veeam Explorer Console.

If this is your first time running the Veeam Explorer console, we do need to do one extra step. We need to provide the application with the Exchange Database Storage Engine file (ese.dll) you can locate this file from your Exchange server. In my setup I have copied the file to my backup server and stored it in a folder on the C Drive called ExchangeDLL. The location of the file on your Exchange Server resides in the bin folder my setup its located at “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin” Once you have copied the file to your backup server we are going to point Veeam Explorer to the proper location. **You only have to do this once**

Click “Options”

Click “Browse” for the version of the ese.dll you want to specify.

Locate the file you copied from your Exchange Server, click “open” then click “ok”.

This is the section where we point Veeam Explorer to the mailbox database. Click “Add Store”

You will be prompted with the following window. You now need to locate your EDB file, you may have more than one Mailbox Database, if you do select the one where the mailbox resides that you need.

The file location will vary, depending on your setup. However the database file will be in the same folder location as it is on your Exchange Server. Remember all we are doing is looking at a mounted copy of your Exchanger Server Backup. Once you have the file located, select it and click “open”

You are now told “online Exchange backup detected, log replay is required” this is normal, and now the logs will be replayed to the database. Click “Recover”

Explorer view of your Exchange Database is visible. From here you can see all users who are located in this mailbox database.

We are going to go ahead and restore some items. But first we need to delete some! From my Administrator account I am going to go ahead and delete everything from the account including e-mails, calendar items, and tasks. You will need to take my word for it. Like I said I deleted everything from my account, I want to restore all the items. Here I could go and restore the entire administrator mailbox, but I want more control. In this example I will go ahead and use the “Advanced Find” and add the criteria that I want to show any item over 1KB in size which happens to be everything in that account.

At this point I am ready to restore the email back to it original location. I have selected all the items I want to recover, right clicked an item and click “Restore to…”

If you notice from the information below, I am also restoring this email to a server that is not part of the same domain as my backup server. But it is no issue; we have the ability to specify different credentials. I populated the Mailbox account I want to restore the items, but this could have been any mail account in my Exchange Organization.

The CAS server address should be populated; you can change this if you must. You can also select the location to restore the items; you can put everything back to the original location or specify a different folder.

Here you can select if you want to only restore changed items, deleted items, and if you would like to mark all restored items as unread.

Once you hit restore you will see a status window.

When the Job completes you will get a status window to let you know the outcome of the restore. In my case I didn’t delete a contact so the items merged. Even though this was a small restore it only took 15 seconds! Imagine the hero you can become when you can restore items to someone’s email within a few minutes.

You don’t always have to restore to the production Exchange Server. Below I will explain your other options.

Open: Allows you to open the item within Veeam Explorer to look at the item in more detail.

Save to .msg file: from here you can save the item as a .msg to a location of your choosing

Save to Desktop: Will save the file as a .msg to the desktop

Send to: Attaches all the items to an email that you can send directly to another mailbox, and from within Veeam Explorer.

Export to .PST file: Export a selected amount of items or the entire mailbox to a .PST file. You can specify the filename and the location

Export to Desktop\Mailbox: This will automatically export your selection to the desktop with the name of the mailbox.

Veeam Explorer for Exchange also comes with the Veeam Backup Free Edition. Even with this being a beta feature it is rock solid. If you are not running Veeam today head over to www.veeam.com and check out all the great solutions Veeam has developed to ease the stress for Virtualization administrators around the world. You can always tell the Administrators who run Veeam; they are the ones who look well rested with a simile on their face.

Windows Server 2012 Server Manager

by Rick ByrneAugust 19, 2012August 19, 20122 Comments

Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 has added some great features. It is totally redesigned and response time is much faster, no more waiting. It allows System Administrators to better manage and view their servers. You can now group servers together for viewing alerts, can remotely deploy roles and features, perform tasks on multiple servers at a time, and add servers from a few different generations of Windows Server.

Below I have shown some of these features.

When you click on the Notification Menu item this will show you all notifications related to Server Manager and any task, to the left of that icon you will see the Refresh icon, this will allow you to refresh the items on the Dashboard.

The Manage Menu Item gives you quick access to the follow items, and gives the ability to add other servers to your console.

You can also add multi servers to Server Manager to manage from one central location. With this you can have a single pan of glass for management, or event viewing. Server Manager can manage more than Server 2012, it can also manage server 2008/R2/2003/R2 they will just need to have WinRM 3.0 installed.

You can also place servers in Groups, this way you will be able to display a subset of Events. You could group all DC’s, Exchange Servers, or Web Servers.

As you can see from the list below, these are the different task you can manage from the server.

From the Server Manager Properties you can set the refresh interval (Range from 1-14400), and set the server manager to not start at logon.

Tools Menu gives you access to many of the tools you may use on a daily basis, without having to look for them in the start menu or control panel.

From the View Menu, you can change the Zoom, but the most useful feature here is to hide the Welcome Tile.

This is the welcome tile, you can hide this with the hide button or from the View menu.

As you add more Roles to your Server the left hand side of the Server Manager Window will populate

As you can see from the File and Storage Services Role

The Local server section is where you can change all the local settings, such as computer name, IP addressing, Updates, and many other things. One thing to keep in mind anytime you change one of these settings, it will not reflect the change on the screen. You need to click TASKS in the top right hand corner and then select refresh. As you scroll more down the page, you will also find this is where you can look at events, BPA, Features/Roles, and even view performance metrics.

The All Servers location is very similar to the Local Server, however it will allow you to manage more than one system, and will show you statistics for more than one server. The dashboard will also reflect all the information collected from all the servers you have in your Server Manager Console.

Windows Server 2012 RC Install

by Rick ByrneAugust 19, 2012August 19, 2012Leave a comment

Been fairly busy lately, haven’t had a whole lot of time to play in the LAB. Today decided it would be a great day to sit and relax and catch up on some things. Following screen shots are just from a base install of Windows Server 2012 RC with GUI. Nothing fancy at all Smile or advanced.

I’m using my lab to run W2k12 as a VM, the lab is running ESXi 5.0.0 768111 anything less and you will get issues trying to install the RC version.

Once you have the VM configured, which I have only assigned 1 CPU/2 RAM/60 GB Disk this VM is just to look at the install and have a browse at some new features and the GUI

This is the first screen you will see when you power on the VM and load the ISO

At this point you will get to pick your regional settings.

At this point you are prompted to install the OS, or repair your OS if there is problems.

With the RC version you have to options to Chose, either Server Core Installation or Server with a GUI. For this install I am going to chose GUI, another blog I will go ahead and just pick the core version.

Of course the “License Terms” Accept and on your go.

As you can see the install is very similar to Windows Server 2008 R2/Windows 7/Windows 8 which we all expected.

Pick your drive to install on.

At this point you can walk away. But don’t go for very long, the entire install process took only 25 Minutes.

In total I counted 2 Reboots that occur, but they are very quick.

I

Go ahead and chose a password. One new feature I noticed on this screen is that you can show your password, this allows you to make sure you are typing the correct information in both boxes. In the dialog box, when you have it selected there will be a little Black Circle with a half Circle underneath it. To display your password click and hold, if you do not click and hold you will not be able to see your password.

You can also use accessibility options, and change the keyboard layout.

the install is complete. As you see from below the screen for logon is different. But not in a bad way.

Type in your password

Wait for your profile to setup.

Once your profile is complete you are brought to the Server Manager.

As you can see the install is very straight forward. This is all I am going to show in this post, but I plan to show more as I play more with Windows Server 2012 RC.

Convert Linked Mailbox to User Mailbox

by Rick ByrneJune 27, 20115 Comments

I have been in the process of migrating Mailboxes from an Exchange 2003 enviroment to Exchange 2010, during the migration some of my mailboxes have been coming over as linked mailboxes and not users mailboxes. Here is an easy fix incase you ever hit this issue.

The reason it is showing as a Linked Mailbox is because the LinkedMasterAcount is set’

Open up the EMS as Administrator
To see the LinkedMasterAccount run this command “Get-User -Identity “user” | FL LinkedMasterAccount
Run the following command “Set-User -Identity “user” -LinkedMasterAccount $null” This command will not have any output, but it will set the LinkedMasterAccount to null
To verify run the same Get-User command from above. I will be Blank, or should be.

The account will now show as a User Mailbox and not a Linked Mailbox. If you need to do more than one account this command does accepting pipeline input, you could also use the Import-CSV Cmdlet to use a CSV as Input. To find out more information on the command go HERE

PowerShell Script Create user from CSV

by Rick ByrneJune 23, 2011June 24, 2011Leave a comment

During testing you always need to create user accounts. But who wants to spend a whole bunch of time creating users? Not me! I went ahead and made a very basic PowerShell Script that will create users from a CSV file.

This is a very Basic Script, it will set a password on the account, allow you to specify the OU to place the accounts, populate the GivenName, Surname, Displayname, Userprincipalname, Samaccountname and enable the account. It can be tweaked to do more. But for me at this moment it works quiet well.

You need to create a CSV file, called latestusers.csv, the file will be in this format

“name,GivenName,Surname,userprincipalname,samaccountname”

The Script data is below, copy the below text into Notepad, and save it as CreateUser.ps1

$password = Read-host “Please Enter your password” -AsSecureString
$path = Read-host “Please Enter your OU”
Import-Csv latestusers.csv | foreach {New-ADUser -Name $_.name -GivenName $_.GivenName -Surname $_.Surname -DisplayName $_.Name -UserPrincipalName $_.userprincipalname -SamAccountName $_.SamAccountName -AccountPassword $password -Enabled $true -path $path}

The text highlighted in Red is all one command and should be on the same line, whereas the Black is meant to be on separate lines.

To run the script:

Run PowerShell as Administrator
Change to the location where you have placed the Script and the CSV file. For me it will be C:\ “Set-Location c:\”
Now run the script. Tyoe “.\createuser.ps1” if you get an error trying to run the script like the screen shot below. Run this Command “Set-ExecutionPolicy Remotesigned”, this will allow you to run scripts.

,

You will get asked to enter a password, this password will be set on all accounts. Enter in a password that meets the requirements of your Domain.
You will the get prompted to Enter your OU, in my case this will be “OU=Accounts,DC=Adatum,DC=Com” Once you press enter the Script will then go look in your CSV file, and create the accounts with the data you have populated in the file.

Again this is a very Basic script, but it can be tweaked to add more data to the user account, but works very good for creating a bunch of test user that are active. Plus beats the hell out of the GUI, and the amount of mouse work you would have to do.

Add Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) with PowerShell

by Rick ByrneJune 17, 2011June 17, 2011Leave a comment

Ever wanted to install the Domain Services with PowerShell? Well I did. If you would like to know more just read below.

Run PowerShell as an Administrator.
Import the ServerManager Module with the following command

“Import-Module ServerManager”

This command will not have any feedback

Run the command Get-WindowsFeature to see what you need to install. From the screen shot below we will need to install the Active Directory Domain Services (AD-Domain-Services) and Active Directory Domain Controller (ADDS-Domain-Controller)

Before we commit the command lets do this, run “Add-WindowsFeature AD-domain-Services,ADDS-Domain-Controller –WhatIf”. this command will tell us what is going to happen. Notice the Screen shot below. It is letting us know that this command will also install .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features, which is needed for AD DS.

“Add-WindowsFeature AD-Domain-Services,ADDS-Domain-Controller”

Lets go ahead and add the Features

“Add-WindowsFeature AD-Domain-Services, ADDS-Domain-Controller”

This command will take a few minutes to complete. Now to make sure we have everything we need we can run the Get-WindowsFeature again. Anything with a “X” means the feature is installed and ready to use. You can export this command to a file so you can keep it for your documentation.

“Get-WindowsFeature > C:\WindowsFeature.txt”

This will save the Text file to your C: Root.

The output will match the following

Display Name                                            Name
————                                            —-
[ ] Active Directory Certificate Services               AD-Certificate
[ ] Certification Authority                         ADCS-Cert-Authority
[ ] Certification Authority Web Enrollment          ADCS-Web-Enrollment
[ ] Online Responder                                ADCS-Online-Cert
[ ] Network Device Enrollment Service               ADCS-Device-Enrollment
[ ] Certificate Enrollment Web Service              ADCS-Enroll-Web-Svc
[ ] Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service       ADCS-Enroll-Web-Pol
[X] Active Directory Domain Services                    AD-Domain-Services
[X] Active Directory Domain Controller              ADDS-Domain-Controller
[ ] Identity Management for UNIX                    ADDS-Identity-Mgmt
[ ] Server for Network Information Services     ADDS-NIS
[ ] Password Synchronization                    ADDS-Password-Sync
[ ] Administration Tools                        ADDS-IDMU-Tools
[ ] Active Directory Federation Services                AD-Federation-Services
[ ] Federation Service                              ADFS-Federation
[ ] Federation Service Proxy                        ADFS-Proxy
[ ] AD FS Web Agents                                ADFS-Web-Agents
[ ] Claims-aware Agent                          ADFS-Claims
[ ] Windows Token-based Agent                   ADFS-Windows-Token
[ ] Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services     ADLDS
[ ] Active Directory Rights Management Services         ADRMS
[ ] Active Directory Rights Management Server       ADRMS-Server
[ ] Identity Federation Support                     ADRMS-Identity
[ ] Application Server                                  Application-Server
[ ] .NET Framework 3.5.1                            AS-NET-Framework
[ ] Web Server (IIS) Support                        AS-Web-Support
[ ] COM+ Network Access                             AS-Ent-Services
[ ] TCP Port Sharing                                AS-TCP-Port-Sharing
[ ] Windows Process Activation Service Support      AS-WAS-Support
[ ] HTTP Activation                             AS-HTTP-Activation
[ ] Message Queuing Activation                  AS-MSMQ-Activation
[ ] TCP Activation                              AS-TCP-Activation
[ ] Named Pipes Activation                      AS-Named-Pipes
[ ] Distributed Transactions                        AS-Dist-Transaction
[ ] Incoming Remote Transactions                AS-Incoming-Trans
[ ] Outgoing Remote Transactions                AS-Outgoing-Trans
[ ] WS-Atomic Transactions                      AS-WS-Atomic
[ ] DHCP Server                                         DHCP
[ ] DNS Server                                          DNS
[ ] Fax Server                                          Fax
[ ] File Services                                       File-Services
[ ] File Server                                     FS-FileServer
[ ] Distributed File System                         FS-DFS
[ ] DFS Namespaces                              FS-DFS-Namespace
[ ] DFS Replication                             FS-DFS-Replication
[ ] File Server Resource Manager                    FS-Resource-Manager
[ ] Services for Network File System                FS-NFS-Services
[ ] Windows Search Service                          FS-Search-Service
[ ] Windows Server 2003 File Services               FS-Win2003-Services
[ ] Indexing Service                            FS-Indexing-Service
[ ] BranchCache for network files                   FS-BranchCache
[ ] Hyper-V                                             Hyper-V
[ ] Network Policy and Access Services                  NPAS
[ ] Network Policy Server                           NPAS-Policy-Server
[ ] Routing and Remote Access Services              NPAS-RRAS-Services
[ ] Remote Access Service                       NPAS-RRAS
[ ] Routing                                     NPAS-Routing
[ ] Health Registration Authority                   NPAS-Health
[ ] Host Credential Authorization Protocol          NPAS-Host-Cred
[ ] Print and Document Services                         Print-Services
[ ] Print Server                                    Print-Server
[ ] LPD Service                                     Print-LPD-Service
[ ] Internet Printing                               Print-Internet
[ ] Distributed Scan Server                         Print-Scan-Server
[ ] Remote Desktop Services                             Remote-Desktop-Services
[ ] Remote Desktop Session Host                     RDS-RD-Server
[ ] Remote Desktop Virtualization Host              RDS-Virtualization
[ ] Core Services                               RDS-Virtualization-Core
[ ] RemoteFX                                    RDS-RemoteFX
[ ] Remote Desktop Licensing                        RDS-Licensing
[ ] Remote Desktop Connection Broker                RDS-Connection-Broker
[ ] Remote Desktop Gateway                          RDS-Gateway
[ ] Remote Desktop Web Access                       RDS-Web-Access
[ ] Web Server (IIS)                                    Web-Server
[ ] Web Server                                      Web-WebServer
[ ] Common HTTP Features                        Web-Common-Http
[ ] Static Content                          Web-Static-Content
[ ] Default Document                        Web-Default-Doc
[ ] Directory Browsing                      Web-Dir-Browsing
[ ] HTTP Errors                             Web-Http-Errors
[ ] HTTP Redirection                        Web-Http-Redirect
[ ] WebDAV Publishing                       Web-DAV-Publishing
[ ] Application Development                     Web-App-Dev
[ ] ASP.NET                                 Web-Asp-Net
[ ] .NET Extensibility                      Web-Net-Ext
[ ] ASP                                     Web-ASP
[ ] CGI                                     Web-CGI
[ ] ISAPI Extensions                        Web-ISAPI-Ext
[ ] ISAPI Filters                           Web-ISAPI-Filter
[ ] Server Side Includes                    Web-Includes
[ ] Health and Diagnostics                      Web-Health
[ ] HTTP Logging                            Web-Http-Logging
[ ] Logging Tools                           Web-Log-Libraries
[ ] Request Monitor                         Web-Request-Monitor
[ ] Tracing                                 Web-Http-Tracing
[ ] Custom Logging                          Web-Custom-Logging
[ ] ODBC Logging                            Web-ODBC-Logging
[ ] Security                                    Web-Security
[ ] Basic Authentication                    Web-Basic-Auth
[ ] Windows Authentication                  Web-Windows-Auth
[ ] Digest Authentication                   Web-Digest-Auth
[ ] Client Certificate Mapping Authentic… Web-Client-Auth
[ ] IIS Client Certificate Mapping Authe… Web-Cert-Auth
[ ] URL Authorization                       Web-Url-Auth
[ ] Request Filtering                       Web-Filtering
[ ] IP and Domain Restrictions              Web-IP-Security
[ ] Performance                                 Web-Performance
[ ] Static Content Compression              Web-Stat-Compression
[ ] Dynamic Content Compression             Web-Dyn-Compression
[ ] Management Tools                                Web-Mgmt-Tools
[ ] IIS Management Console                      Web-Mgmt-Console
[ ] IIS Management Scripts and Tools            Web-Scripting-Tools
[ ] Management Service                          Web-Mgmt-Service
[ ] IIS 6 Management Compatibility              Web-Mgmt-Compat
[ ] IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility            Web-Metabase
[ ] IIS 6 WMI Compatibility                 Web-WMI
[ ] IIS 6 Scripting Tools                   Web-Lgcy-Scripting
[ ] IIS 6 Management Console                Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console
[ ] FTP Server                                      Web-Ftp-Server
[ ] FTP Service                                 Web-Ftp-Service
[ ] FTP Extensibility                           Web-Ftp-Ext
[ ] IIS Hostable Web Core                           Web-WHC
[ ] Windows Deployment Services                         WDS
[ ] Deployment Server                               WDS-Deployment
[ ] Transport Server                                WDS-Transport
[ ] Windows Server Update Services                      OOB-WSUS
[X] .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features                       NET-Framework
[X] .NET Framework 3.5.1                            NET-Framework-Core
[ ] WCF Activation                                  NET-Win-CFAC
[ ] HTTP Activation                             NET-HTTP-Activation
[ ] Non-HTTP Activation                         NET-Non-HTTP-Activ
[ ] Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)      BITS
[ ] Compact Server                                  BITS-Compact-Server
[ ] IIS Server Extension                            BITS-IIS-Ext
[ ] BitLocker Drive Encryption                          BitLocker
[ ] BranchCache                                         BranchCache
[ ] Connection Manager Administration Kit               CMAK
[ ] Desktop Experience                                  Desktop-Experience
[ ] DirectAccess Management Console                     DAMC
[ ] Failover Clustering                                 Failover-Clustering
[ ] Group Policy Management                             GPMC
[ ] Ink and Handwriting Services                        Ink-Handwriting
[ ] Ink Support                                     IH-Ink-Support
[ ] Handwriting Recognition                         IH-Handwriting
[ ] Internet Printing Client                            Internet-Print-Client
[ ] Internet Storage Name Server                        ISNS
[ ] LPR Port Monitor                                    LPR-Port-Monitor
[ ] Message Queuing                                     MSMQ
[ ] Message Queuing Services                        MSMQ-Services
[ ] Message Queuing Server                      MSMQ-Server
[ ] Directory Service Integration               MSMQ-Directory
[ ] Message Queuing Triggers                    MSMQ-Triggers
[ ] HTTP Support                                MSMQ-HTTP-Support
[ ] Multicasting Support                        MSMQ-Multicasting
[ ] Routing Service                             MSMQ-Routing
[ ] Message Queuing DCOM Proxy                      MSMQ-DCOM
[ ] Multipath I/O                                       Multipath-IO
[ ] Network Load Balancing                              NLB
[ ] Peer Name Resolution Protocol                       PNRP
[ ] Quality Windows Audio Video Experience              qWave
[ ] Remote Assistance                                   Remote-Assistance
[ ] Remote Differential Compression                     RDC
[X] Remote Server Administration Tools                  RSAT
[X] Role Administration Tools                       RSAT-Role-Tools
[ ] Active Directory Certificate Services Tools RSAT-ADCS
[ ] Certification Authority Tools           RSAT-ADCS-Mgmt
[ ] Online Responder Tools                  RSAT-Online-Responder
[X] AD DS and AD LDS Tools                      RSAT-AD-Tools
[X] AD DS Tools                             RSAT-ADDS
[X] AD DS Snap-Ins and Command-Line … RSAT-ADDS-Tools
[X] Active Directory Administrative … RSAT-AD-AdminCenter
[ ] Server for NIS Tools                RSAT-SNIS
[ ] AD LDS Snap-Ins and Command-Line Tools RSAT-ADLDS
[X] Active Directory module for Windows … RSAT-AD-PowerShell
[ ] Active Directory Rights Management Servi… RSAT-RMS
[ ] DHCP Server Tools                           RSAT-DHCP
[ ] DNS Server Tools                            RSAT-DNS-Server
[ ] Fax Server Tools                            RSAT-Fax
[ ] File Services Tools                         RSAT-File-Services
[ ] Distributed File System Tools           RSAT-DFS-Mgmt-Con
[ ] File Server Resource Manager Tools      RSAT-FSRM-Mgmt
[ ] Services for Network File System Tools RSAT-NFS-Admin
[ ] Hyper-V Tools                               RSAT-Hyper-V
[ ] Network Policy and Access Services Tools    RSAT-NPAS
[ ] Print and Document Services Tools           RSAT-Print-Services
[ ] Remote Desktop Services Tools               RSAT-RDS
[ ] Remote Desktop Session Host Tools       RSAT-RDS-RemoteApp
[ ] Remote Desktop Gateway Tools            RSAT-RDS-Gateway
[ ] Remote Desktop Licensing Tools          RSAT-RDS-Licensing
[ ] Remote Desktop Connection Broker Tools RSAT-RDS-Conn-Broker
[ ] Web Server (IIS) Tools                      RSAT-Web-Server
[ ] Windows Deployment Services Tools           RSAT-WDS
[ ] Feature Administration Tools                    RSAT-Feature-Tools
[ ] BitLocker Drive Encryption Administratio… RSAT-BitLocker
[ ] BitLocker Drive Encryption Tools        RSAT-Bitlocker-DriveEnc
[ ] BitLocker Recovery Password Viewer      RSAT-Bitlocker-RecPwd
[ ] BITS Server Extensions Tools                RSAT-Bits-Server
[ ] Failover Clustering Tools                   RSAT-Clustering
[ ] Network Load Balancing Tools                RSAT-NLB
[ ] SMTP Server Tools                           RSAT-SMTP
[ ] WINS Server Tools                           RSAT-WINS
[ ] RPC over HTTP Proxy                                 RPC-over-HTTP-Proxy
[ ] Simple TCP/IP Services                              Simple-TCPIP
[ ] SMTP Server                                         SMTP-Server
[ ] SNMP Services                                       SNMP-Services
[ ] SNMP Service                                    SNMP-Service
[ ] SNMP WMI Provider                               SNMP-WMI-Provider
[ ] Storage Manager for SANs                            Storage-Mgr-SANS
[ ] Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications               Subsystem-UNIX-Apps
[ ] Telnet Client                                       Telnet-Client
[ ] Telnet Server                                       Telnet-Server
[ ] TFTP Client                                         TFTP-Client
[ ] Windows Biometric Framework                         Biometric-Framework
[ ] Windows Internal Database                           Windows-Internal-DB
[ ] Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environm… PowerShell-ISE
[ ] Windows Process Activation Service                  WAS
[ ] Process Model                                   WAS-Process-Model
[ ] .NET Environment                                WAS-NET-Environment
[ ] Configuration APIs                              WAS-Config-APIs
[ ] Windows Server Backup Features                      Backup-Features
[ ] Windows Server Backup                           Backup
[ ] Command-line Tools                              Backup-Tools
[ ] Windows Server Migration Tools                      Migration
[ ] Windows System Resource Manager                     WSRM
[ ] Windows TIFF IFilter                                TIFF-IFilter
[ ] WinRM IIS Extension                                 WinRM-IIS-Ext
[ ] WINS Server                                         WINS-Server
[ ] Wireless LAN Service                                Wireless-Networking
[ ] XPS Viewer                                          XPS-Viewer

With all of the required Features installed we can now run DCpromo.exe to finish the install of our Domain Controller, New Domain, or New Forest.

If you would like to know more about Creating a Domain in Windows Server 2008 R2 Click Here.

DISM Windows Server 2008 R2 Change Edition

by Rick ByrneJune 16, 2011June 16, 201110 Comments

Hit a little issue in my lab today, It happens that I went ahead and installed Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard for a bunch of my Lab VM’s. Now the issue is that I need Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition to support the Windows Failover Clustering feature.

So long story short, I didn’t want to have to fully rebuild my Lab VM’s. So I went looking around and found a very nice way to in place upgrade to Enterprise Edition.

The command that we are going to use is the DISM.exe command (Deployment Image Servicing and Management Tool), that is available in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You can find out more about the Tool HERE

First of all go ahead and on the server you want to run this command open up PowerShell as an administrator.
Click on the “Start Button” Type Power, PowerShell will then show under programs, Right Click the PowerShell Icon and select “Run as administrator.

Enter is this command in the window to find the version you are running, just to confirm. “DISM /online /Get-CurrentEdition”

Enter the following command to see which version you can in place upgrade too “DISM /online /Get-TargetEditions” You can see from the output of the command window, Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard can be upgraded to Enterprise and DataCenter.

Enter in the following command to upgrade your version of Windows Server. In my case I am going to be upgrading too Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition, and the following command will do this. You need to have a key for Enterprise edition and fill in the XXXX with that information. Once the command is done running you will need to restart your computer, if you are ready just type “Y”.

“DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerEnterprise /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX”

Once the computer restarts, you can go ahead and look at your computer properties, and you will now see you are running Windows Server Enterprise. Well in my case anyways.

Errors: If you get an error while running this prodcedure, see if any of the below issue will resolve the issue.

“Setting an Edition is not supported with online images” More than likley the reason you are getting this error is because the server you are trying to inplace upgrade has the AD DS Role installed and is acting as a domain controller. The only way to upgrade this one is to move the FSMO Roles to another server, then DCpromo the server, and make it a member server and then run the command, and then you can go ahead and make the server a Domain Controller once the edition of Windows has been changed.
“The specified product key is not valid for the target edition. Run this command again with a product key specific to the target edition.” I have no reason why this issue happens,(its key confusion of some sort) but to fix it you can go ahead and use the default KMS key provided by Microsoft 489J6-VHDMP-X63PK-3K798-CPX3Y, use this key in the command, and once the system reboots, go into the Server Manager and change and activate the softare with your own key.

Note: You cannot downgrade with this method, just upgrade. Also please do this at your own risk, I am doing this in a Lab Environment which is going to impact only one me. This is not a major upgrade, basically all it is doing is changing the product key if need be, and changing some registry values.

Create Domain in Windows Server 2008 R2

by Rick ByrneJune 7, 2011June 15, 2011Leave a comment

I know this is a simple process, but I was in the process of building a testing domain, so figured I would go ahead and screenshot the process, and add some simple notes to it. I hope someone finds it useful.

Microsoft Guidlines for Passwords

Understanding Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Functional Levels

Active Directory Domain Services Installation Wizard (Dcpromo.exe) issues
Explains the error above, plus any other issues you may encounter.

Relocating the Active Directory Database Files

Active Directory Backup and Restore Information. Explains more about DRSM.

Once the server reboots, you will need to logon to the server as a Domain Administrator. Which used to be your local admin account on the server. Just make sure to logon to the domain.

You can now begin configuring the domain.