Category Archives: Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Active Directory: How to move the FSMO Roles via the GUI

All 5 FSMO roles of Active Directory can be moved via script, but lets see how it works via GUI (MMC): RID Master, Infrastructure Master, and PDC Emulator Login to the target DC via RDP Open "AD Users and Computers" Right-click the Domain and choose "Operations Masters..." Choose the appropriate tab Click "Change..." Click "Yes" to confirm Schema Master Make sure you are member of the "Schema Admins" group. Being in the "Enterprise Admins" group is not enough! Login Read more [...]

Windows: Run commands to start Control Panel items

Sometimes it is faster to access Control Panel items via command line than clicking and searching in the UI. To use a command, just press <Windows-Key>-R, which will open the Run window. Then just type the command and press <Enter>. For the .cpl files, the "control" command can even be left out, so that is even less to type. Control Panel Applet Command OS Accessibility Options control access.cpl XP Action Center control /name Microsoft.ActionCenter 8, 7 control Read more [...]

Win Server 2008 R2: How to enable the Disk Cleanup Utility

Sometimes it is convenient to cleanup some disk space by deleting unneeded files like service pack files, the temporary folder an so on. On Windows 7 workstation, you have the Disk Cleanup Utility to do this: By default, this tool is not enabled on Windows Server 2008 R2. To enable it, there are two possibilities: (Not recommended) Install the Desktop Experience feature. I don’t recommend this as installing the Desktop Experience feature will not only install Disk Cleanup, but Read more [...]

Windows Server 2008 R2: No Remote Desktop Access after SP1 Upgrade

When I updated my Windows 2008 R2 Servers to SP1 via Remote Desktop I lost my RDP session when the machines reboot (which is normal). But after they are up and running again, when I try to connect via Remote Desktop, they cancel my connection. After some research I found that this happens if you install the Security Hotfix 2667402 before SP1. From the KB, under the “Known Issues” section: After you install security update 2667402 on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 Read more [...]

Install WordPress on a Windows 2008 Server with IIS 7

You can find many instructions on the Web on how to install WordPress on your own web server, but it might still be a complicated task. So I did my own instructions as per below: Make sure you have MySQL installed on your server Make sure, IIS 7 is installed Make sure PHP is installed and php.ini is configured correctly Download the latest WordPress version (2.9.2 as of this writing) from wordpress.org Unzip the downloaded file into a newly created Inetpub sub-folder The newly Read more [...]

Unlocking shared files on Windows 2008 R2 Server

In enterprise environments, documents and other file types are often located on central file server and users open their documents directly from there. Sometimes, server administrators need to update such files, but can’t because at least one user is using it and locking the file. You could of course just reboot the server and the file would be unlocked, but that might be overkill as you are throwing everybody out. Luckily, there is a tool on the server, that lets you selectively unlock files, Read more [...]

MS KMS Licensing Server Setup on Win2008 R2 over the phone

For Enterprises, Microsoft has created a central licensing system to avoid the need of every company PC to connect to Microsoft Servers on the Internet to activate the software. One or more KMS Servers can be used inside the company to activate all clients. You cannot only activate Operating Systems such as Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2, but also other applications from Microsoft such as Office 2010 with a Volume License. The KMS server is the only server that needs to connect to Microsoft Read more [...]