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Minimum Requirements to install Window Server 2012

1. 64bit Processor with minimum 1.4GHz speed.

2. Ram: minimum 512MB Ram.
3. Hard Disk: minimum 32GB, (Computers with more than 16GB Ram will require more disk space for paging,
hibernation and dump files).

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Window Server 2012 Edition

1. Foundation. (Provide a Windows Server experience for as many as 15 users.)

2. Essentials. (For small businesses with 25 to 50 users)
3. Standard. (Designed for physical or minimally virtualized environments.)
4. Datacenter. (Large organization, Designed for highly virtualized private cloud environment.)

Dissimilarities among above editions:

Window Server 2012 as designed in such a way that it can act like operating system of cloud.
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New Features in Window Server 2012

1. New Interface.
2. Management.
3. Installation Option.
4. Windows PowerShell 3.0 Version.
5. Storage with new features.
6. Remote Access.
7. Networking.
8. Hyper-V 3.0 Version
9. IIS 8 (Web services)
10. IP Address Management (IPAM)
11. Security & Clustering.

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Installation and Configuration.

Installation is same like Window. Just select operating system type (Datacenter Evaluation{Server with GUI}).

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Promoting Server as DC by installing Active Directory Role

1st of all run dcpromo command in cmd

Click “add roles and features” on Dashboard or go to Manage -> Select “Add roles and features”

Click next
Keep default selection: “Role based and feature-based installation”

Select the Server from Server Pool and select next:

Select “Active Directory Domain Services”:

By selecting this role another window will appear which shows the dependencies which are pre-required to install this
role:
Click Next:

Now the feature list will be appear, if we want to add any feature, we can select that feature from this window: click
Next

Select the checkbox to restart this server and click install.

After installation click “Promote this server to a domain controller” to promote it as DC

Following wizard will appear, select “Add a new forest (bcz we are going to create a new domain in new forest)”

Give Domain name and click next

Adjust forest and domain functional level, DNS and Directory Services Restore Mode Password and click next:

Click Next:
Click next

Confirmation for Database folder, Log files folder, Sysvol Folder, we can change these paths, if required:
See all configuration detail. We can also export these details by clicking “View Script” for next usage, and click next:

Click Next:
Next is pre-requisites check and after installation server will rebooted automatically:

Click Install after pre-requisites check:

After rebooting, we can see, AD DS and DNS blocks have been added in Dashboard and if we see in Tools, then we can
see active directory Tools and DNS Tools in this List:

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Administration Tools and Applications:

Go to Start:
Just right click on empty screen, then a bar will appear at the bottom, click on All apps

Here all system and user installed tools will be available in categorized form:
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Add tools and applications to start screen:

Go in this screen and do right click on any application, it will be selected and at bottom many of the options will be
displayed.

Click on Pin to Start (1st option)

Again go in start, and here we can see newly added command prompt:

Again go in tools administration and select command prompt and now we will see unpin from start to remove it from
start.
Here we can see other options which we can use like: Pin to Taskbar, Open in new Window, Run as administrator, Run as
different user and Open fire location.

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Convert Your server to Desktop usage by adding Desktop experience feature:

Select Desktop Experience under “User Interfaces and infrastructure”. It will add some desktop usage utilities and shift it
to Desktop using system.
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Server Basic Configurations

1. IP Configuration

Server Manager -> Local Server -> Click on Ethernet Option:

After configuration , it will seem like this:

2. Remote Desktop Enabling:

A window will appear, select “Allow remote connections to this computer”, A warning message will appear, you just
click ok.
Now the bellow User authentication option will be activated. So we can select users who would be able to access this
server remotely:
3. Windows Update Configration:

Click on Not Configured against Windows Update:

Click on Turn on automatic updates

For more settings, click on “Let me choose my settings”:

Here in drop down menu different options are available for settings:
4. Time, Date and Zone Setting:

Click on the option against Time Zone, a wizard will appear will all of these changings:
5. Rename the Server:

Rename the system in following window:

It will required restart, so after restart, we will see the changed name:

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GUI to Server core conversion:

Server Manager -> Manage -> Remove Roles and Feature -> Go directly to Feature Wizard -> Expand User interfaces and
infrastructure and un-install all selected features, these would be 2:
Complete the process and reboot the system. After rebooting, just give password, now no GUI will appear, just
command line prompt will appear. This is simple conversion. No need to re-install the server for core installation:
Relocate Active Directory Database:

It is recommended to create and place AD database in a spate partition. However may bee we have to relocate database
due to disk space shortage:

The default path for database is C -> Windows -> NTDS:

I have created a separate partition and a folder named as NTDS inside it:

Run -> regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CURRENT CONTROLSET -> SERVICES -> NTDS -> PARAMETERS:
When computer is started, the computer and Active directory look inside of this register folder for path recognization
where is database need to store.
One way is to perform this task is manual:

We copy and paste the database files from source to destination manually and also we edit all settings manually in this
registry folder:

But we will perform it in other way in command line method:

Open Services window:

Right click on Active directory Domain Services, and click stop:

Right click on it and stop:

Run -> cmd
Ntdsutil
Activate instance ntds
Files
Help (to view concerning commands)
Move db to e:\ntds
Move logs to e:\ntds
q
q
exit

See commands in help menu:

Type command: (db move command)

Logs move command:

We will see, all of the files have been shifted to new path:

Now again if we check registry, we will see. All the paths have been updated:

Now again start active directory service. Click on Start:

Reset the NTDS Password: