I have a 45GB system drive in my production Vista workstation.  I've noticed for a while that I was running out of space (the space free bar turns red in Explorer), but I only install programs on C: and that seemed strange to me.  On a Friday afternoon I finally decided to investigate, and found hiberfil.sys sitting in my C: drive, even though I'm clearly running Vista on a high-end desktop workstation, and have my power settings configured to "High Performance".  When I verified that all Sleep options were set to "Never" within the Control Panel GUI, I went Googling and found this command:

powercfg -h off (run from a Command Prompt, using Run As Administrator)

The second this command was executed, hiberfil.sys disappeared.  Ahhh...  Peace, love, and no more red drive space bars...

After installing Windows Vista Service Pack 1, you can cleanup the SP1 installer files (assuming you will not need to uninstall the Service Pack) by executing the following command:

vsp1cln.exe - Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Disk Clean-up

Explorer lock up on you?  It still happens unfortunately...  In Windows Vista and Server 2008, if you Ctrl+Shift+Right Click in a blank area of the Start Menu, you'll see an option to "Exit Explorer".

Server Core cuts down on the number of built-in apps, and understandably so given the push to go "window-less".  However one glaring omission I just stumbled upon is a missing mstsc.exe from the System32 directory.  What's the point of this?  Certainly there are scenarios where you'll be logged into a Server Core box and need to Remote Desktop back out again...  One instance in particular would be RDPing to a virtual machine hosted on the Core box.

To re-establish the Remote Desktop Connection client in server core, copy the following files from a working Vista SP1 or Server 2008 installation to the same folder on the destination box (note that you need to make sure you are using the name processor platform on both machines, i.e. x86, x64 or ia64):

• \Windows\System32\mstsc.exe
• \Windows\System32\mstscax.dll <- Note that this file may be in use on your source workstation, but it also appears to not be necessary for RDC to operate
• \Windows\System32\en-US\mstsc.exe.mui
• \Windows\System32\en-US\mstscax.dll.mui

Vista's deployment tools are hands down the best that Microsoft has released for managing Windows deployments to date - and so far really I'm only talking about SysPrep and ImageX.  We are going to make a concerted effort with Windows Server 2008 to maintain reference build images of our server configs so we're certain we're getting the same config on each of our servers, something that we hadn't been able to focus on in 2003.  Here's a highlight that impressed me this morning...

1. Build Windows Server 2008 Standard Server Core installation
2. Log in, set a basic password
3. cd \Windows\System32\Sysprep, run Sysprep.exe
4. Use OOBE mode, generalize the OS, and click OK
5. On reboot, boot from your Windows PE media
6. Run ImageX in capture mode (with max compression) to take an image of the SysPrep'd Server Core installation

This resulted in a 340MB image that when applied back to the server takes less than two minutes to install!  When imaging completes and you reboot, the SysPrep wizard will prompt you to accept the License Agreement, and then allow you to set the computer name.  You're then presented with Ctrl+Alt+Del, and on logging in the first time must set your Administrator password.

To extend this a bit, you could use a SysPrep answer file to assign an IP or join a domain, which I'm doing manually right now.  However, this points to a bright future where server provisioning can be just about completely automated.  I can currently roll a Standard Server Core image out and be logged into a command prompt and ready to configure in under 15 minutes.  Nice work Microsoft!

We're still waiting on some new test equipment for building a 64 bit Hyper-V test environment.  Knowing that I could get a jumpstart by at least getting some VHD's read to go, I set about getting Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 installed on Windows Server 2008 Server Core.  With it's small memory footprint (~280MB in default config), Server Core is going to be THE host operating system of choice for Windows-based virtualization.

When installing Virtual Server into Server Core, make sure to uncheck the Virtual Server Web Application component.  Server Core doesn't support ASP.Net in IIS, and thus can't support the web-based administration interface.  Never fear however, as you can use VMRC Plus to manage your Virtual Server instance.

Once Virtual Server is installed on your Server Core instance, you'll need to make three configuration changes...

1. Create a firewall exception for Virtual Server: netsh fi add all "c:\program files\Microsoft Virtual Server\vssrvc.exe" "Virtual Server" ENABLE
   
2. Run the following VBS script to enable VMRC Plus connections to Virtual Server:
   set vs = wscript.createobject("VirtualServer.Application")
   vs.VMRCEnabled = True
   vs.VMRCAdminportNumber = 5900
   vs.VMRCIdleconnectionTimeOutEnabled= false
   vs.VMRCXResolution = 800
   vs.VMRCYResolution = 600
   
3. Run the following VBS script to allow a specific AD group to connect to Virtual Server:
   Dim ace
   set objVs = wscript.CreateObject("VirtualServer.Application")
   Set objSecurity = WScript.CreateObject("VirtualServer.VMSecurity")
   
   set objSecurity = ObjVs.Security
   
   Set ace = objSecurity.AddEntry("domain_name\Domain admins",vmAccessRights_Allowed)
   ace.WriteAccess = True
   ace.ReadAccess = True
   ace.ExecuteAccess = True
   ace.DeleteAccess = True
   ace.ReadPermissions = True
   ace.ChangePermissions = True
   
   ObjVs.Security = objSecurity

Install VMRC Plus on your management workstation.  Make sure to run VMRCplus.exe as a user within the group you specified in Step 3 above.  Finally, simply make a connection to your Virtual Server box, and you are off to the races.

Special thanks to Arlindo and Virtual PC Guy, both Microsoft bloggers, for their help in getting this config up and running!

My first brush with Server Core in 2008 has been a mostly positive one, however it's a little daunting to finish installation and be dumped immediately at a command prompt.  My first thought was - hey, how can I setup the network?  This post will attempt to capture the basic steps that need to be performed to configure a Server Core installation.

Configure IP Address: netsh interface ipv4 set address "Local Area Connection" static <IP Address> <Subnet Mask> <Default Gateway>

Configure DNS: netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver "Local Area Connection" <DNS Server IP> <index> (where index is a 1-based integer value for each DNS Server added)

Turn on Remote Administration (Terminal Services): cscript scregedit.wsf /ar <0=enabled, 1=disabled>

Turn off the Advanced Firewall: netsh advfirewall set domainprofile state off

Change Computer Name: netdom renamecomputer <current computer name> /newname:<new computer name> (Then restart using shutdown /r /t 0)

Join a Domain: netdom join <computer name> /domain:<domain name> /userd:<username> /passwordd:* (with *, you will be prompted to enter password)

Add user to local Administrators group: net localgroup Administrators /add <domain>\<username>   (Use /delete to remove specified user)

Special Thanks to Daniel Petri for a great Server Core basic setup reference!

From the Server Core blog, here's a posting with other common configuration scenarios (specifically adding roles and drivers).

I have used this tool so much in the last few days it's ridiculous.  SlySoft makes Virtual CloneDrive, which allows you to mount ISOs right from Explorer.  I've then been sharing the virtual drives for faster OS installs - using the network is the only way to go as opposed to a CD or DVD drive.  Sadly CloneDrive won't work in Vista x64, but that's what virtual machines are for.

One other tool along these lines is ISORecorder, which allows you to rip CDs and DVDs straight to ISO.

I received the above message while attempting to remove Active Directory from the last DC in a test forest child domain, even though the second-to-last DC demotion didn't produce errors.  The following article describes the procedure necessary to cleanup orphaned DC metadata from the domain: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;216498

Completing steps 1 through 16 solved the problem - say goodbye, child domain...

Check out EnhanceIE.com - with contributions from various Microsoft IE teams.  Go to the Tweaks section to learn how to turn off IE's built-in search box.