Jason Yoder, MCT

Below is a list of commands that I picked up from TechNet Magazine.  Remember that SCONFIG now replaces some of these in Server Core 2008 R2. Here are links to more information on SCONFIG How to open the firewall How to add a users to the Local Administrators group How to move a Server Core 2008 R2 from a domain to a workgroup Add Server Core to a domain Setting IP Addresses Change Windows Update settings Rename Server Core Enable Remote Desktop on Server Core     Control desk.cpl - View or set display settings. Control intl.cpl - View or set regional and language options, including formats and the keyboard layout. Control sysdm.cpl - View or set system properties. Control timedate.cpl - View or set the date, time, and time zone. Cscript slmgr.vbs –ato - Activate the operating system. DiskRaid.exe - Configure software RAID. ipconfig /all - List information about the computer’s IP address configuration. NetDom RenameComputer - Set the server’s name and ...

FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards.  FIPS defines how federal computers systems will be secured and how they will talk to each other.  Windows XP and later can be configured for FIPS compliance.  In my 6416C class in New York, this question came from a room full of government employees.  They had an obvious interest in making sure what they had just learned on Network Policy Server could be considered for usage in their organizations.  The two TechNet articles below outline how to do this and some considerations to follow. Configure Wireless Clients running Windows 7 and Windows Vista for PEAP-MS-CHAP v2 Authentication The effects of enabling the "System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, hashing, and signing" security setting in Windows XP and in later versions of Windows

Changing the screen resolution on Server Core is not likely to be a day-to-day task for most administrators.  Microsoft did not bother creating a nice tool like SCONFIG in the R2 version of the software to help us with this.  To change the screen resolution in Server Core, you have to manually edit the registry. On your Server Core, type regedit and press Enter . You will be presented with the graphical Registry Editor. Expand HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video Expand each GUID until you find the one that has a subkey labeled VolitileSettings . Click the 000 0 Key above the VolitileSettings subkey. Double click the DefaultSettings.XResolution . Select Decimal Enter the number of horizontal pixels you want and click OK . Repeat the process for the DefaultSettings.YResolution I choose 640x480 for the resolution that I want. Close the Registry Editor . Log off and then log back on to get your new resolution.

Server core is an excellent platform to host your Hyper-V environment. With the removal of the GUI, you lose potential attack vectors and gain more hardware resources that would otherwise be consumed in supporting the GUI. Below are the steps to install Hyper-V on server core and manage it. Once we have confirmed that our Server Core can communicate on the network, add the Hyper-V role Type Start /w ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V and press Enter. The command is case sensitive. When prompted, click Yes . After the reboot, enable remote administration by entering this line: netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=“Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)” new enable=yes If you are running Server Core R2, you can use the SConfig command. Type Sconfig and press Enter Select option 4 Select option 1 At this point, you should be able to use a Windows 7 machine with RSAT installed to remotely manage your Hyper-V environment.

Many Network Administrators prefer to manage the roles and features of Server Core remotely using a graphical interface provided by RSAT.  However, you may be at an organization that requires you to either be at a Server Core console, or to Remote Desktop into the server itself. If you have one or two Server Cores, this may not be a big deal.  But what if you have 5, 10, or more?  While working with a software development company I noticed that the screen background and text color was used to denote the set of code being used.  I thought this would be a good idea to flag which Core you were working on. To change the background color: Expand HKEY_Current_User\Control Panel\Color . You will see the Background setting is at 29 95 122. These are the RGB values (Red, Green, Blue) for the background color.  The number determines the brightness of each color component for each pixel.  Setting a value to 0 turns it off.  Setting it to 255 makes it as br...

Here is an easy way to add a new user into the Local Administrators group on your Windows Server 2008 R2 box. Log in as a member of the Local Administrators group. Type Sconfig and press Enter . Press 3 for Add Local Administrator In the example above, you can see the two ways to define a user account depending if this Server Core is in a domain, or a workgroup.  This particular one is in a workgroup. Type the new of the new user and press Enter . You will be prompted for a password and then to confirm it. You will see the prompt above informing you of the accounts creation. Type 10   to log off the server core. You should now be able to log on with the new user account.

From time to time you may need to remove a server from your domain.  For what ever the reason may be, now you have a much simplified way for doing it in Server 2008 R2.  This procedure assumes this is a member server and not a domain controller. Log into your server core with credentials that will allow you to remove a server from the domain.  Type sconfig and press enter . Press 1 for Domain/Workgroup . Press W for Workgroup . You will get a confirmation prompt.  Click Yes . You will be asked for a user account that can perform this operation.  Enter the user name and press Enter . Next you will be prompted, in a new window, for this users password.  Enter it and press Enter . Click Yes to restart your computer.  Your server core will now be in a Workgroup.

Microsoft gave us a nice tool to use with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2 when working with server core. To set the IP address on Server Core 2008 R1, you would have to follow this procedure: · Type netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces · Press Enter · Record the name of the interface you want to set a static IP address for. Sample output is below. Idx Met MTU State Name --- --- ----- ----------- ------------------- 3 5 1500 Connected Local Area Connection · Type netsh interface ipv4 set address name=3 source=static address=10.10.1.10 mask=255.255.0.0 · Optionally, you can add a gateway address by appending gateway= address to the end of the command. · In the Name parameter, we used the Idx value. We could have also typed “ Local Area Network” . The above method still works if you need to batch file something. Now with the R2 version, you can use a menu based system thanks to SConfig . On you Server Core 2008 R2, log in and type sconfig . Press 8...

In Server Core 2008 R1, this was a bit of a mess.  Microsoft provided us with a script.  We had to type: Cscript c:\Windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /AU 4 to turn Automatic updates on. To turn them back off we had to type Cscript c:\Windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /AU 0 . With R2, we have an easier method.  Type sconfig and press Enter Press 5 for Windows Update Settings . Press A for Automatic or M for Manual . You will receive the prompt above to let you know that you disabled Automatic updates or, you will see the one below if you turned them on.

This is now a very easy task over the R1 version.  The R1 method involed using the NETDOM command.  It went something like this: netdom RenameCOmputer Old-Name /NewName:New-Name you then had to manually reboot the machine by typing Shutdown /r /t 0 . In Server Core 2008 R2, you can use the sconfig command. Log into your server core server. Type sconfig and press enter . Type 2 for Computer Name: and the press Enter . Enter the computer name and press Enter . You will then be asked for the username of a user who has the rights to change this servers name and then press Enter .. A new window will open up asking for that users password.  Enter it and press Enter . You will need to click Yes to reboot the server.

On a GUI version of Windows, you have this nice graphical way of turning on Remote Desktop. Just open the Server Manager and click Configure Server Manager . Click Configure Remote Dekstop and you see the nice GUI below.     Not so for Server Core.  One nice thing is that with the R2 version, we can do this without called a long, cryptic script. Log into Server Core R2. Type sconfig and press Enter . Press 7 for Remote Desktop and the press Enter . Press E to Enable and then Enter . You now get two options.  With WIndows Vista and WIndows 7, you can connect to a remote desktop session more securely than you could with Windows 200 or XP.  If you are only going to connecting with Windows Vista/7/2008, then select option 1.  If you will be connecting to this remote desktop session with Windows XP, click option 2. When you see the above prompt, then Remote Desktop is enabled.