Windowmaker's blog

How to install Active Directory on Longhorn Server Core

Before installing AD on Server Core you should make sure you have all the basic requirements satisfied. Not being able to comply with the requirements will not let you set up the Active Directory. The actual list has not been published yet to my knowledge, so you might want to use Daniel Petri's What are the AD installation requirements and recommendations article as guidance. Note: This article is only good for understanding how to install the FIRST DC in a NEW AD Domain , in a NEW TREE , in...

Server Core - first steps

So you have Server Core installed. You have configured the clock, time zone and want to continue those basic tasks you are accustomed to perform when you build a new server. Now when I build a new server, what I usually do is to: Enable Remote Desktop so I can administer the server from remote Configure Automatic Updates and install the latest patches Reconfigure the default Pagefile settings So if we were talking about "normal" Windows server (you know - the one with GUI, wizards, bells and whistles...

Setting date, time, regional and language settings in Longhorn Server Core

Ok... so we do not have Control Panel in the Start menu (hey! there is no Start menu!), so what do we do ? The thing with Core is that despite it's lack of the nice interface, it is still capable of running some GUI based applications. What we do know though is that all those Control Panel applets were actually files with CPL extension that were launched using control.exe program. So let's poke around and see if we can find any of those in Core: Not much, right ? So let's try executing those. Typing...

Longhorn Server Core anyone ?

So I have finally freed some time to give a shot to the long awaited Longhorn Server Core. "Server Core? What the hell?" - one might ask. Well, if you have not heard about it, this is where all those Unix SysAdmins will shrug and will give you one of those "yeh, right!" looks. We are talking here about a cut-down version of server OS that comes without all those GUI bells and wistles. When you are done with the installation, all you have is a command prompt. Cool! To save myself the explanations...