Installing Windows Server 2008


OK, now that you’ve got the bits, how do you install them? First of all, remember that we’re talking about a beta product (assuming you’re reading this around the time of publication of this book), so don’t try to use Windows Server 2008 in a production environment. At least, not until the RC stage-unless you’re in TAP. In that case, you’ve probably been using it for a while now on your production network because you get a lot of support from Microsoft when you’re part of that program.

What should you install Windows Server 2008 on, then, if you’re going to be testing it? Well, you could build a test network with a few spare boxes if you have some kicking around. Or you could use Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 to create a virtual test environment and try out Windows Server 2008 there. I’ve even got Windows Server 2008 running in a virtual machine in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, and it runs fine. I can install Active Directory on it, join a Windows Vista client (also running in a VM) to the domain, and test various features and enhancements of Windows Server 2008 quite easily. Just make sure you’ve got lots of RAM in your testing machine because Windows Server 2008 VMs that are running well eat up a lot of RAM (at least in the beta stage they do).

Manual Installation

So you’ve downloaded an .iso image of Windows Server 2008 from one of the sources I mentioned earlier, you’ve burned it to DVD (or mounted the .iso using some utility), and you’re ready to install it. What should you do next?

First of all, don’t try upgrading from a previous platform such as Windows Server 2003-at least, not just yet. Once Windows Server 2008 reaches the RC stage it might support upgrades, but Beta builds rarely support upgrading from previous versions of a platform. Perform a clean install instead. The easiest way to do this is by using the manual approach. Pop your Windows Server 2008 DVD into your machine, boot from the DVD, and the setup process begins. Choose a drive to install it on, enter your product key (obtained from Microsoft Connect, MSDN, or whatever), and then choose the kind of installation you want to perform. That is, perform either a full installation of Windows Server 2008 or a Windows server core installation.

Be sure you don’t neglect trying out the Windows server core installation option. As we saw in Chapter 6, “Windows Server Core,” it’s pretty cool. And it’s something that larger customers have been frequently requesting-you know, the kind of customer that needs to deploy racks of domain controllers, racks of file servers, and so on. They want low-footprint, low-attack-surface, fixed-function solutions that are stripped down and have no nonessential components. You could be one of those customers some day, or maybe you are now. So try the Windows server core installation option, and put it through its paces. It’ll be worth the effort.

Unattended Installation

Another way you can try installing Windows Server 2008 is by performing an unattended installation. To do this, you can download the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) from the Microsoft Download Center. Then use one of its core components, the Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM), to create a distribution share and an unattend.xml answer file for unattended installation. The unattend.xml settings for Windows Server 2008 are a superset of those for Windows Vista, and you should take time to explore what these settings do and how you can install Windows Server 2008 from a network share with minimal user intervention.

The “Step-by-Step Guide” for the Windows server core installation option of Windows Server 2008 even has an appendix with a sample unattend.xml file you can use or customize to perform an unattended installation of the Windows server core option on a machine. Customizing this file is a good way to get introduced to the XML syntax used in answer files for deploying both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.




Microsoft Windows Server Team - Introducing Windows Server 2008
Introducing Windows Server 2008
ISBN: 0735624216
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 138

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