Today i’ve installed two Windows 2008 Terminal Servers in my testenvironment. After configuring the group policy and installing the applications, the first testuser was logging in.

Everything looks fine, but there was a problem with Adobe Reader 9.0. The application wasn’t able to start and I received a EventID 1000 in the event viewer of my Terminal Servers.

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 ”Faulting application AcroRd32.exe, version 9.0.0.332, time stamp 0x4850f0a3, faulting module Annots.api, version 9.0.0.332, time stamp 0x4850e57f, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x001bd9e0, process id 0xb9c, application start time 0x01c99438e39a6ea2.”
—————————————————- 

So I started to trouble shoot and I found the following solution. This action must be configured on every Terminal Server.

Set the compatibility mode of AcroRd32.exe to Windows XP (Service Pack 2). After this modification, everything works fine!

1) Browse the executable AcroRd32.exe on your Terminal Servers
2) Right-click on the executable and choose properties
3) Go to the Compatibility tab
4) Choose Show settings for all users
5) Enable the compatibility mode Windows XP (Service Pack 2)

Today i’ve installed the new public release of Windows 2008 R2 x64 server in my virtual testenvironment. This are the first looks…the next days I’ll install some roles en features. The first thing I want to test is the new Hyper-V 2.0 and Powershell 2.0.

To be continued…

Today I had to do a upgrade from my existing Domain Controller, a Windows 2003 R2 Server to a Windows 2008 Server. 

The Windows 2003 Domain Controller is configured with a domain upgrade.local, forest functional level is Windows Server 2003 and the domain functional level is Windows Server 2003. This server is also the DNS server for this domain. There’s is one forward lookup zone and I’ve created a reverse lookup zone for the 172.16.10.x Subnet. We’re going to migrate to Windows 2008 Server.

First of all, I’ve installed a second virtual server with Windows 2008 Server and give it a static IP address, a subnet mask and a DNS server.

Now you have to prepare the forest and the domain with the new schema extensions.

D:\sources\adprep\adprep/forestprep and D:\sources\adprep\adprep /domainprep.
(Note: if you want to add a RODC, Read Only Domain Controller, you’ve to run also the following command: adprep /rodcprep. There must be already a Windows 2008 Domain Controller present in the domain before you can add a RODC.)

Now you can run a DCPROMO on the Windows 2008 Server.

The new Windows 2008 Domain Controller is succelfully promoted in the existing domain upgrade.local.

The next step is to move all the FSMO roles to the new Domain Controller. The following settings must be made.

Change the Domain Naming Master Active Directory Domains and Trusts, Operations Master, Change

Change the Schema Master run the following command regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll , now you’re able to add the Schema Snap-in in your Management Console.
Active Directory Schema, Operations Master, Change

   

Change the RID Master, PDC Emulator and the Infrastructure Master Active Directory Users and Computer, Your domain, Operations Masters, Change

Now all the FSMO roles are transfered to the new Server 2008 Domain Controller. Now we can demote the Windows 2003 Domain Controller by running the DCPROMO command.

After this steps and a copple of reboots, the migration is done! You now have a Windows 2008 Domain Controller.

In this article we are going to upgrade our Windows 2003 Domain Controller to a Windows 2008 Domain Controller by performing an in-place upgrade.

First i’ve build an clean Windows 2003 x64 Server and promoted the server to a new domain controller of upgrade.local.
(note: if you want to upgrade your Windows 2000 Domain Controller to Windows 2008, you’ve first have to do an in-place upgrade to Windows 2003!)

Note: make sure you’ve at least 14000 Mb (14 Gb) free space available on your system partition.

Now place the Windows 2008 DVD in your computer, or mount it in your virtual environment.

Browse to your DVD player (in my environment it’s D:) and go to the following folder D:\sources\adprep.

First we’re going to prepare our forest with the following command: adprep /forestprep. After this command, we’re going to prepare our domain: adprep /domainprep.

Today I was testing some things in my virtual 2008 Server Core. When you are browing through regedit, it’s easy to have a bigger screen resolution. You can change the screen resolution in the register, using regedit.

- Log into Server Core with an admin account

- Run Regedit from the command prompt and modify the following reg keys:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video

- you will find one or more GUIDs. Expand each one to find the one with a VolatileSettings subkey under the 0000 subkey (usually the first GUID)

- Double-click the 0000 key and modify the DefaultSettings.XResolution and DefaultSettings.YResolution values to set your resolution

- Close Regedit

Logoff and log back on to receive the new resolution settings.

When you’re deploying a new Active Directory environment, you have also have to design the new group policy structure. When you need to search for a specific policy and you don’t know where you can find it, use the following excel sheet. This sheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the Administrative template files (.admx/.adml) delivered with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Download the Excel sheet

You can filter on the following options:

- Filename (.admx)
- Policy Setting Name
- Scope (User of Machine)
- Policy Path
- Registry information (HKLU or HKLC)
- Requirements
- Explain text
- Supported On
- Reboot required
- Logoff Required

Today we’re going to configure a Windows 2008 Server Core Edition as a second domain controller in my testlab at home. In this post i’m using commands at the command prompt.

First of all install Windows 2008 Server Core Edition.

Now we are going to enter the productkey and activate it.

1) Enter the productkey:
slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

2) Activate:
slmgr.vbs -ato

3) Show activation:
slmgr.vbs -dli

4) Rename the computer:
Netdom renamecomputer “%computername%” /newname:W2K8CO01 /reboot:15
(use the command set to view all the variables used by Microsoft Windows)

5) Show all network interfaces:
Netsh interface ipv4 show interface 

6) Set a static IP address:
Netsh interface ipv4 set address name=2 source=static address=172.16.1.11 mask=255.255.0.0 gateway=172.16.1.1
(make sure that you’re choosing the right network interface. In this example it’s 2, so name=2 it means interface 2)

7) Set a static DNS server:
Netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name=2 address=172.16.1.10 index=1

8.) Turn Remote Desktop (RDP) on:
Cscript %windir%\system32\SCRegEdit.wsf /ar 0 

9) Enable Remote Desktop (RDP) in the Windows Firewall:
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”remote desktop” new enable=yes
(Note: type this rule in by your self, copy past will give an error!)

10) Enable Remote Management (RemoteCMD) in the Windows Firewall:
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”Remote Administration” new enable=yes
(Note: type this rule in by your self, copy past will give an error!)

11) Join the domain:
Netdom join “W2K8CO01″ /domain:testlab.local /usero:administrator /passwordo:*
(This step is only for joining a member server to the domain. For a Domain Controller go to step 12)

12) Preparing the promotion to a Domain Controller:
We need to create a unattend.txt that we are going to use by the DCPROMO. So let’s create a new textfile, type notepad

13) Making the unattended.txt:
Copy and past the following test into the new textfile and save this file on the C: drive of the Core Server.

14) Run the DCPROMO
dcpromo /unattend:c:\unattend.txt15) Reboot the Domain Controller
shutdown -r -t 5

So the second Domain Controller for the domain testlab.local is ready!!

As some of you know, whitin 2 years Windows Server 2008 R2 will be there, and there’ll be some big changes. In Windows Server 2008 R2 the name of Terminal Services changes to Windows Desktop Services. In the table below you can see an overview of the new names.

Improved RemoteApp and Desktop Connections
New RemoteApp & Desktop Connection (RAD) feeds provide a set of resources, such as RemoteApp programs and Remote Desktops. These feeds are presented to Windows 7 users via the new RemoteApp & Desktop Connection control panel, and resources are tightly integrated into both the Start menu and the system tray.
The improved RemoteApp and Desktop Connections features in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 provide the following improvements:
• Extends Remote Desktop Services to provide tools to enable VDI. The in-box Remote Desktop Services capability is targeted at low-complexity deployments and as a platform for partner solutions, which can extend scalability and manageability to address the needs of more demanding enterprise deployments. VDI includes the following technologies to provide a comprehensive solution:
• Hyper-V™
• Live Migration
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
• Microsoft Application Virtualization version 4.5 in Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP).
• Vista Enterprise VECD licensing
• Provides simplified publishing of, and access to, remote desktops and applications.  The feeds described above provide access in Windows 7, but using  the new RemoteApp & Desktop Web

Access, users will also be able connect to these resources from Windows Vista and Windows XP.
• Improved integration with Windows 7 user interface. Once accessed, RAD-delivered programs and desktops show up in the Start Menu with the same look and feel of locally installed applications.
A new System Tray icon shows connectivity status to all the remote desktop and RemoteApp connections to which the user is currently subscribed. The experience is designed so that many users won’t be able to tell the difference between a local and remote application.

Improving User Experience through new Remote Desktop Protocol capabilities.
These new capabilities, enabled with Windows Server 2008 R2 in combination with Windows7, improve significantly the experience of remote users, making it more similar to the experience enjoyed by users accessing local computing resources. These improvements include:

• Multimedia Redirection: Provides high-quality multimedia by redirecting multimedia files and streams so that audio and video content is sent in its original format from the server to the client and rendered using the client’s local media playback capabilities.

• True multiple monitor support: Enables support for up to 10 monitors in almost any size, resolution or layout with RemoteApp and remote desktops; applications will behave just like they do when running locally in multi-monitor configurations.

• Audio Input & Recording: VDI supports any microphone connected to a user’s local machine, enables audio recording support for RemoteApp and Remote Desktop. This is useful for VoIP scenarios and also enables speech recognition.

• Aero Glass support: VDI provides users with the ability to use the AeroGlass UI for client desktops; ensuring that remote desktop sessions look and feel like local desktop sessions.

• Direct X redirection: DirectX 9, 10 and 11 applications will render on the server and will be remoted using bitmaps (requiring Direct3D-compatible hardware).  If the application supports the new DirectX 10.1 API with remoting extensions the DirectX (2D& 3D) graphics are redirected to the local client to harness the power of the GPU on the user’s local device, removing the need for a GPU on the server.

• Improved audio/video synchronization: RDP improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 are designed to provide closer synchronization of audio and video in most scenarios.

• Language Bar Redirection: Users can easily and seamlessly control the language setting (e.g. right to left) for RemoteApp programs using the local language bar.

• Task Scheduler: This adds the ability in Task Scheduler to ensure that scheduled applications never appear to users connecting with RemoteApp. This reduces user confusion.

While RAD improves the end-user experience, RAD also reduces the desktop and application management effort by providing a dedicated management interface that lets IT managers assign remote resources to users quickly and dynamically. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes the following RAD management capabilities to help reduce administrative effort:

• RemoteApp & Desktop Connections control panel applet. Users can easily connect to RemoteApp programs and Remote Desktops using the RemoteApp & Desktop Connections control panel applet in Windows 7.

• Single administrative infrastructure. Both RemoteApp & Desktop connections and RemoteApp and Desktop Web Access are managed from a single management console. This ensures that connections can still be used from Windows XP and Vista by using a Web page.

• Designed for computers that are domain members and standalone computers: The RemoteApp & Desktop feature is easy to configure and use for computers that are members of Active Directory domains and for standalone computers.

• Always up to date. Once a workspace is configured, that workspace keeps itself up to date until it is removed from the user’s desktop. When an admin adds an application or update it automatically appears on users’ Start menu and via that user’s Web Access page.

• Single sign-on experience within a workspace. Ensures that only a single logon is required to access all applications and resources with a RAD connection.

• RemoteApp & Desktop Web Access. This capability provides full integration with RemoteApp & Desktop Connections to ensure a consistent list of applications is available to the user at all times, no matter the desktop OS used. The default web page provides a fresh and inviting look and feel and includes a new Web-based login with integrated single sign-on.