I was just about to drop a post on how to enable Wi-Fi in Server 2008 (R2) as I just bumped into this when installing a Server 2008 R2 on a HP 8730p notebook and found out that by default this Service isn’t enabled, which makes sense as usually Servers don’t use a Wireless connection.

But why rewrite something others did already. Read more about enabling Wi-Fi on Server 2008(R2) here.

Issues with installing Windows Updates? Then have a look at the following Microsoft Support Articles:

KB971058 How do I reset Windows Update components?

KB947821 Description of the System Update Readiness Tool for Windows Vista, for Windows Server 2008, for Windows 7, and for Windows Server 2008 R2

Today I had a problem with copy pasting some content from a RDP session to my local client. I was quite surprised that this didn’t work since I have been using this quite often recently. But as so often, the answer to my problem was quickly found in Google. It appears that I have become so used to work with Windows Server 2008 and 2008-R2 that I had simply forgotten that if you want to use the copy paste functionality to copy files between a Server 2003 RDP session and a local client, you must configure a local drive redirection.

and as we speak about RDP and copy paste, I would also like to mention the following two interesting blog posts. Why does my shared clipboard not work? (Part 1) and Why does my shared clipboard not work? (Part 2)

I’ve spend about 2 hours tonight getting SQL Server 2008 Express installed on a Windows Server 2008 system…….. Launched the installation package, it started extracting it’s content, it made an attempt to launch the embedded setup.exe and then…..Nothing.

The temporary folder that holds the extracted installation files got deleted and all that was left was the below error log.

03/09/2010 23:22:48.079 ======================================================================
03/09/2010 23:22:48.235 Setup launched
03/09/2010 23:22:48.282 Attempting to determine media source
03/09/2010 23:22:48.329 Media source value not specified on command line argument.
03/09/2010 23:22:48.360 Setup is launched from media directly so default the value to the current folder.
03/09/2010 23:22:48.407 Media source: c:\3c583b87cb85226328b6ae0c9d\
03/09/2010 23:22:48.454 Attempt to determine media layout based on file ‘c:\3c583b87cb85226328b6ae0c9d\mediainfo.xml’.
03/09/2010 23:22:49.454 The folder ‘c:\3c583b87cb85226328b6ae0c9d\’ does not contain a valid media info file ‘mediainfo.xml’.
03/09/2010 23:22:49.517 Setup closed with exit code: 0x84C4001E
03/09/2010 23:22:49.579 ======================================================================

Solution !

I had to find out that for whatever reason the “Format” within the Regional Settings was not set to English. After setting this to English the installation executed and completed successfully.

Assume you are at a client site and plan to deploy a Windows Server (2008 / 2008-R2) or Windows Clients (Windows Vista / Windows 7) and want to check if they do already have KMS Services running on their network.

It’s very simple. Just open a command prompt and type the following command:

nslookup -type=srv _vlmcs._tcp

If KMS Services are present on the network the results will be listed as shown in the picture below.

Related Content
Upgrade your existing KMS Service to support Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2
Volume Activation changes in Windows7
Fundamentals of Volume Activation

One of the things to consider when deploying Windows 7 clients is to update the Central Store on your domain controllers. If you haven’t created a Central Store yet, I recommend you watch the video or read the documentation I have listed at the end of this post.

If you do have a Central Store already, updating it with the Windows 7 Group Policy Administrative templates is very straight forward. You simply copy the templates that are stored under C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions on your Windows 7 client to the Central Store which is located at \\FQDN\SYSVOL\FQDN\policies\PolicyDefinitions (FQDN = fully qualified domain name)

A good alternative for copying the files manually is the Vista Central Store Creator Utility from Darren Mar-Elia which automates the whole process of creating and updating the Central Store.

 Related Content
Screencast: How-To Configure the Central ADMX Store
How to create a Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Templates in Window Vista
Group Policy Settings References for Windows and Windows Server

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While I was preparing my home lab for some Group Policy tests i wanted to perform I got an error when generating a report in the Group Policy Management Console which is running on a Windows Server 2008 with Internet Explorer 8.

The error was: “An error occurred in the script in this page”

A search on the web indicated that this had to do with the Internet Explorer Security Settings, but when I opened the Internet Explorer Security settings I noticed that I could not change them since all buttons were grayed out.

But wait a minute, I’m the Administrator on this box, so why should I not be able to change these settings?. Another search on the web pointed me to the Internet Explorer 8 Enhanced Security Configuration which places the server and Internet Explorer in a configuration that decreases the exposure of servers to potential attacks.

To configure the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration you must open the Server Manager and start “Configure IE ESC” as shown in the screen shot below.

Then turn of IE ESC for Administrators.

Start Internet Explorer again, and you notice that you can now configure the Security Settings.

I then clicked on “Reset all zones to default level”. The next time I opened the Group Policy Manager, I could run the settings report without any error.

Resources:
Internet Explorer 8 Enhanced Security Configuration

When I recently browsed through the Windows Download Center I noticed that there is a download for “Windows Server 2008 R2 Multilingual User Interface Language Packs”. Having worked with Multilanguage Packs for the Windows Client operating system since these were introduced with Windows 2000, I was astonished to see these in the public download center, because for Windows Clients you must have a Software Assurance or other Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft to use Multilanguage Packs. So why are these made available for free for the Server operating system?

Well after a long journey through the Microsoft Volume Licensing portal, I finally found an explanation within the Microsoft Product List document.

I found the following 2 statements:

In the case of most server products (e.g., Windows Server), the MUI is included with the base product. Customers licensing those products may use the MUI subject to the use rights for those products. 

Licenses for all editions of Windows Server 2008 include the rights to the Multi-language User Interface (MUI). Customers who downgrade to earlier editions also have the right to use MUI.

Although the above mentioned document contains information for Software that is licensed through Microsoft Volume Licensing programs, I “assume” that this also applies to Server 2008(R2) systems that have an OEM license, otherwise I wouldn’t understand why Microsoft would make available this download for the public.

Related topics:

Windows Multilanguage Packs explained

Windows MUI Knowledge Center

Windows Server 2008 Multilingual User Interface Language Packs

Hyper-V Language Pack Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB951636)

Here is another video from TechnetEdge talking about the changes in volume activation for Windows7. What I found interesting to hear is that there will be a patch available for your current KMS server running on Windows Server 2003 or 2008 that will allow your current KMS system recognizing Windows7 clients.

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Volume-Activation-changes-in-Windows-7/

The AppLocker Technical Documentation for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 provides technical guidance about understanding how AppLocker works and how to effectively plan and deploy AppLocker policies.

The download contains two documents:

BETA – AppLocker Frequently Asked Questions.pdf
BETA – Planning and Deploying Windows AppLocker Policies.pdf

Download here

If you are running a Hyper-V server, this is something you want to look at. The VHDShellExt.VBS extends the explorer context menu for VHD files with the following functions.

Download the script from MSDN Code Gallery and run cscript.exe VHDShellExt.vbs /action:setup for installation. More documentation can be found on Ravikanth’s site.

Learn more about Windows Server 2008 R2. All documents can be downloaded from here

Watch this video on TechnetEdge explaining simplified server core configuration with Server 2008-R2.

Microsoft has published the Sever 2008 R2 survival guide which is a useful collection of resource links related to Windows Server 2008 R2.

You can download the Windows Server 2008 R2 Documentation Survival Guide from here

In the video below Brian Desmond and Laura talk about the new things that come with Windows Server 2008 R2 AD.