Windows Server 2008 Core Quick Reference

This month I have been setting up my first Windows 2008 core server to go into a production environment. It has been a very interesting experience as I was expecting a straight forward process but ran into a few challenges. What with some vendor specific hardware and a bizarre WSUS issue, I have certainly had some fun.

Therefore I thought that I would share with you my cheat sheet that has a few basic commands that got me through this build and some commands seemed to be harder to find than expected. Now they are in no particular order from a technical point but are in the order that I found them/needed them. J

 

Set the computer name

Netdom computername [origcomputername] /add Core.contoso.com

Netdom computername [origcomputername] /makeprimary core.contoso.com

Configure IP address

Netsh int ipv4 set address “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.1.200 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1

Netsh int ipv4 set address “Local Area Connection” source=dhcp

Netsh int ipv4 set dnsserver “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.1.200 primary

Netsh int ipv4 set winsserver “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.1.200 primary

Change the name of the network interface

Netsh int set interface name = “Local Area Connection” newname = “LAN”

Manage Firewall

Netsh firewall set opmode enable

Netsh firewall set opmode disable

Enable Remote Administration

Netsh firewall set service remoteadmin enable

To set up the registry for remote admin

Cscript C:\Windows\System32\Scregedit.wsf /ar 0

If you are using an older version of TS client, then you need to drop the security levels on core

cscript C:\Windows\System32\Scregedit.wsf /cs 0

To enable automatic updates

cscript C:\Windows\System32\Scregedit.wsf /AU 4

To use the Disk Management MMC snap-in remotely

Net start vds

To view main hardware/software details of core

Systeminfo.exe

Reset the administrator password

Net user administrator *

To activate the server

Slmgr.vbs –ato

To join the domain

Netdom join <computer name. /domain:<domainname> /userd:<username> /password:<password>

Restart core

Shutdown /r

To remotely find out if this server a core build using WMI

    wmic path win32_operatingsystem get OperatingSystemSKU /value

    To list installed drivers:

Sc query type= driver

 

    Installing a driver that is not included:

Copy the driver files to Server Core

Pnputil –i –a <path>\<driver>.inf

 

    List of installed patches:

wmic qfe list

 

To List the installed roles

OCList

 

To install a role

Start /w ocsetup <name of role>

 

Hopefully you will find this useful too :)