How to inject LAN drivers into WDS Server BOOT images

We use WDS (Windows Deployment Services) to image large numbers of computers. Lately we have been using a Windows Server 2008 R2 WDS server with a Windows 7 boot image. However several times we have found that newer PCs/Laptops (manufactured after Windows 7) have trouble PXE booting in to the Windows 7 boot image, due to the lack of LAN drivers.
We found that these drivers need to be "injected" in to the boot image (a .WIM file) to enable the PC/Laptop to be imaged using WDS. After several attempts we found the following procedure worked quite well to achieve this.
Before You Start

• You’ll need a full install of WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit,) as it contains the necessary tools to manage WIM files. This can be done on any system, but if you’re running WDS it is best to perform the injection on the WDS server.

Simple File backup with Robocopy

One of the main issues when using any computer is regular backup of your precious data to protect against corruption and accidental deletion. Microsoft has always provided their "Windows Backup" utility and it is generally very good for full system backups and restores.

But what if you want to backup just your personal data or certain files or folders and not others? What if you just want to restore one particular file? There are plenty of third party tools that will do the job, but some can be rather expensive. Besides, why buy what you already have.

Supplied in Windows Vista, 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2, as well as the previous resource kits is a utility called "Robocopy." This is a small command line based tool (a bit like XCopy) that can be scripted and configured with exceptions, to copy selective data either once or on a schedule and even write to a comprehensive log file.

Disable Skype Supernoding

Skype is one of the most popular pieces of VoIP and IM software available.  It is fast, free, good quality, fairly reliable and seems to work almost anywhere. It is also one of the few more secure pieces of communication software, using basic PGP Encryption for calls and instant messaging.

Skype operates on a peer to peer model, rather than a server to client model using is own Skype Protocol and proprietary VoIP Network. This means that the user directory is scattered between "nodes" in the network, rather than using an expensive, centralised infrastructure.

Each client has a list of "nodes" called the "host-cache." This is a list of IP Addresses and Port Numbers of "supernodes."

Exporting and Importing File Screen Settings for Server 2008

Included in Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 is "File Server Resource Manager" which enables Network Administrators to set up Disk Quotas and File Screening. File Screening is particularly useful for protection against known viruses and preventing users from storing certain file types.

There are several File Screen groups and Templates already configured if you choose to use them.

Windows Server 2003 Service Timeout

Frequently on Windows Server 2003 when rebooting, a service may fail to start and the following message appears over the logon screen:

Or when trying to start or restart a service manually you may receive this message.

This is because the timeout delay is set to low for the service to complete its startup process and causes it to fail.

Configuring Windows Server 2008 R2 DHCP Split-Scope

At last with Windows Server 2008 R2 Microsoft have introduced an easy way to provide some form of redundancy for DHCP servers with the new Split-Scope Wizard. Administrators have always had to provide some form of DHCP redundancy in larger networks, this was usually done by manually splitting scopes across more than one server, and if a lot of scopes are required this can be a laborious job, and not the easiest to manage.
So what have Microsoft introduced now? Lets presume that you have 2 DHCP servers configured on your network. On server 1 you go ahead and configure your DHCP scope as you always have, include any Scope Options, server options etc. When you define your scope, include all the range that you will be wanting to split, for example a new scope;
IP Range 10.1.1.100 – 10.1.1.200
So, nothing new so far, once you scope is configured, right click on the new scope, select advanced, and then Split-Scope,

Windows Server DNS Zone Import

Following on from my previous Blog "windows server 2008 globalnames zone" , once the new zone was created I had to add all the NetBIOS names of our servers etc. Now being the lazy admin that I am, I could not bring myself to add them manually, so thought that there must be an easier way of doing so, and fortunately, after some head scratching there is.

The Zone in question was an Active Directory Integrated Zone, so the first job was to set this as not Active Directory Integrated. Easy enough, in DNS manager, right click the zone and click Properties, on the general tab, click change next to Type, and uncheck “store the zone in Active Directory”.

Once that is complete, navigate to C:\windows\system32\DNS and locate the file containing the local copy of the zone, this will be named the same as the zone you have just amended in DNS Manager, in my Case GlobalNames. Open this up with Notepad, and below the ZONE RECORDS heading you will see the DNS entries listed, these are in tab delimited format of;

Windows Server 2008 GlobalNames Zone

Since before time began, administrators have always had the pleasure of Dealing with WINS (windows Internet Naming Service) for name resolution within Windows Domains. Now although WINS works, generally, when it has problems such as replication, they can soon become a headache, particularly when a great number of servers are involved.

With server 2008, and now in R2, a new DNS (Domain Names System) zone was introduces called GlobalNames. This has been introduced as a replacement (at your peril) for WINS for NetBIOS names stored in DNS. Now this Zone is static, and all entries have to be manually added, and are not updated by clients etc.

Recently we had an issue with a NetBIOS name resolving to different IP’s from different clients. Adding to the headache was that different client OS’s gave different results also. After some time investigating the oddity, I decided to have a look at implementing Global Names.

Clustering windows Server 2008 on VMWARE vSphere

Having clustered SQL 2005 on virtual Windows Server 2008 64 BIT servers on vSphere, I thought I would post a guide to the process.

The first step is to create the new virtual machines. This is pretty much a case creating new VM's with a couple of extra steps. So as an example for the first box here goes;

Open up your vSphere Client, and from Inventory host and clusters, or Inventory VM's and templates right click and select "new Virtual machine" and you are prompted with

Select typical and click Next