Partitioning hard-disk drives

Posted: May 21, 2010 in Server, Server 2008, System Information
Tags: ,
1

 

Give Windows Server 2008 a hand, and it takes an arm . . . or at least another drive. Installation assesses all the hard-drive resources in the system, and if you have two drives (or partitions), the OS attempts to use both. The first active partition gets snagged for the system files . . . the minimum required to raise the system to a point where you can run recovery tools or the Recovery Console. Windows Server 2008 calls this the system volume.

Windows Server 2008 then snags a second drive or partition and uses it for the boot files, the files needed to boot the rest of the operating system all the way to the desktop on which you can log in. Windows Server 2008 calls this volume the boot volume. (This is a reversal of the old naming convention for boot and system partitions.)

Two reasons exist for the dual-disk consumption. First, Windows Server 2008 is optimized to use more than one hard-disk drive. Second, a minimum boot disk can be configured to hold just the boot files and can be formatted as FAT or FAT32 instead of NTFS. The theory is that if you lose the base operating system — that is, if you cannot boot to the desktop — you can atleast boot to a DOS diskette and then, from DOS, copy new base files over the corrupt ones (or replace a defective drive). Many NT and NetWare systems have been configured this way. However, a well-designed and managed system need not retain a FAT boot disk, which, because of its poor security, is a risk to the entire system because it does not support file-level security.

Windows Server 2008, however, enables you to boot to the Boot Options console (whenever it detects a disaster). Here you have several options, such as Safe Mode with Networking, and from there you can attempt to boot without certain services and debug the problem after you have the OS up and running. You can also boot the Recovery Mode Console, which takes you to a command line that you can use to access NTFS partitions and the boot disks. The practice of leaving boot or system files on FAT volumes is old-fashioned — the result of bad memories from Windows NT days. We recommend the partition arrangement options described in the following sections.

Option 1: One HDD

This arrangement uses one hard-disk drive, which forces Windows Server 2008 to put both boot files and system files onto the same drive and partition. To use this option, follow these steps:

1. Configure the system with one hard-disk drive of about 12GB in size. (Microsoft’s official recommendation is to supply at least a 10GB partition, but with roles and features to be added, as well as patches and fixes and new features coming down the road, you need to leave room for expansion.)

2. Format the partition during the install as NTFS.

3. Have Windows Server 2008 choose the default partition name.

The pros of this partitioning option are as follows: First, you save on hard-disk drives. Second, you can mirror this disk for fault tolerance. (Unfortunately, you can mirror the disk only under hardware disk mirroring because Windows Server 2008 does not enable you to mirror a disk that was installed as a basic partition . . . even if you make the disk a dynamic disk.)

The negatives of this partitioning option are that, if you must format the system or boot volumes as FAT, you end up with a disk consisting of numerous partitions. This is not necessary on a server and can later lead to problems, such as no capability to mirror or diminishing hard-disk space and the advanced features of dynamic disks. You may also have trouble providing dual-boot capability, but dual boot is not recommended, and besides, you have no need to provide dual boot on a production server.

Option 2: Two HDDs

This arrangement uses two hard-disk drives: Windows Server 2008 puts boot files on one disk and system files on the second disk. To use this option, follow these steps:

1. Configure the system with two hard-disk drives of about 2GB each in size.

2. Format the drives as NTFS during the install.

3. Have Windows Server 2008 choose the partition names and the default and put the files where it needs to.

The positive aspect of this partitioning option, as far as we can tell, is that you have the option of leaving the boot volume formatted as FAT (or FAT32) and formatting the rest of the partitions and drives as NTFS.

The negatives of this partitioning option are that you use up a second drive for a small amount of hard-disk space, but if you are bent on dual or multi-boots, the second drive can hold the additional OS.

Although you have a performance incentive to use a second hard disk, the increased performance is not worth the effort and the second drive, considering the speed and response of modern hard disks. We are also talking about Server Core here and not Active Directory, LOB servers, SQL Server, or Exchange, which are built to take advantage of additional drives. You would be better off using a second drive as a mirror of the first to gain a fault-tolerance feature.

What Is Server Core?

Posted: May 21, 2010 in Server, Server 2008
Tags: , ,
0

The Server Core installation lets you install a minimal OS for running just the chosen server

roles that would not even need a GUI. This means that you don’t have the huge ‘‘attack’’ surface

that will ensue from all the service requirements. One more thing: Once you install just Server

Core you can stand your server up in a secure environment, both physical and online, and

worry only about securing the services you are actually running. Once Server Core has been

installed you can then open Server Manager (remotely or via scripting) and install, among many

others, the following server roles:

■ Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)

■ Application Server

■ DHCP Server

■ DNS Server

■ File Services

■ Print Services

Here are some more benefits of the Server Core installation alternative:

■ Lower maintenance. You only need to maintain on the server what is actually installed

on the server. Why worry about maintaining File Services on a server that is nothing more

than a simple domain controller?

■ You need less disk space. The Server Core requires only about 1 gigabyte (GB) of disk

space to install and approximately 2GB for operations after the installation.

■ Less management. Management costs in realms like security, availability, and service

level are far less than previous installation scenarios. You would not have to worry about

supporting a bunch of services and code that you are not using.

ENTER Webcam Drivers

Posted: May 11, 2010 in Drivers, System Information
Tags:
0

Steps to Install the Drivers:

My Computer> (Right Click)> Manage> Device Manager> Select the Webcam With the Warning Icon> Double Click the Icon of the Webcam

Then Click on Re-Install Drivers.

Select This time only.

And select the Path where you have Extracted the Files and proceed with Installation.

The Drivers Will be installed into your computer.

Click Here to DOWNLOAD

Solving Spooling Problems

Posted: May 11, 2010 in Printers, System Information
Tags:
0

Windows Server 2003 uses a service to control the spooling of print jobs. If this service isn’t running, print jobs can’t be spooled. You can check the status of the Print Spooler using the Services utility. Follow these steps to check and restart the Print Spooler service:

  1. In Administrative Tools, click or double-click Computer Management.
  2. Right-click the Computer Management entry in the console tree and select Connect To Another Computer on the shortcut menu. You can now choose the system whose services you want to manage.
  3. Expand the Services And Applications node by clicking the plus sign (+) next to it, and then choose Services.
  4. Select the Print Spooler service. The Status should be Started. If it isn’t, right-click Print Spooler and then select Start. The Startup Type should be Automatic. If it isn’t, double-click Print Spooler and then set Startup Type to Automatic.
  5. If this doesn’t resolve the problem, you might want to check other related services, including
    • TCP/IP Print Server (if installed)
    • Print Server for Macintosh (if installed)
    • Print Server for UNIX (if installed)

    Tip

    Spoolers can become corrupted. Symptoms include a frozen printer or one that doesn’t send jobs to the print device. Sometimes the print device might print pages of garbled data. In most of these cases stopping and starting the Print Spooler service resolves the problem. Other spooling problems might be related to permissions.

Troubleshooting Printer Problems

Posted: May 11, 2010 in Printers, System Information
Tags:
0

 

An understanding of how printing works can go a long way when you’re trying to troubleshoot printer problems. When you print documents, many processes, drivers, and devices work together to print the documents. If you use a printer connected to a printer server, the key operations are as follows:

  • Printer driver

    When you print a document in an application, your computer loads a printer driver. If the print device is attached to your computer physically, the printer driver is loaded from a local disk drive. If the print device is located on a remote computer, the printer driver might be downloaded from the remote computer. The availability of printer drivers on the remote computer is configurable by operating system and chip architecture. If the computer can’t obtain the latest printer driver, it’s probably because an administrator hasn’t enabled the driver for the computer’s operating system. For more information, see the section of this chapter entitled “Managing Printer Drivers.”

  • Local print spool and print processor

    The application you’re printing from uses the printer driver to translate the document into a file format understandable to the selected print device. Then your computer passes the document off to the local print spooler. The local spooler in turn passes the document to a print processor, which creates the raw print data necessary for printing on the print device.

  • Print router and print spooler on the print server

    The raw data is passed back to the local print spooler. If you’re printing to a remote printer, the raw data is then routed to the print spooler on the print server. On Windows Server 2003 systems, the printer router, Winspool.exe, handles the tasks of locating the remote printer, routing print jobs, and downloading printer drivers to the local system, if necessary. If any one of these tasks fails, the print router is usually the culprit. See the sections of this chapter entitled “Solving Spooling Problems” and “Setting Printer Access Permissions” to learn possible fixes for this problem. If these procedures don’t work, you might want to replace or restore Winspool.exe.

    The main reason for downloading printer drivers to clients is to provide a single location for installing driver updates. This way, instead of having to install a new driver on all the client systems, you install the driver on the print server and allow clients to download the new driver. For more information on working with printer drivers, see the section of this chapter entitled “Managing Printer Drivers.”

  • Printer (print queue)

    The document goes from the print spooler into the printer stack—which in some operating systems is called the print queue—for the selected print device. Once in the queue, the document is referred to as a print job—a task for the print spooler to handle. The length of time the document waits in the printer stack is based on its priority and position within the printer stack. For more information, see the section of this chapter entitled “Scheduling and Prioritizing Print Jobs.”

  • Print monitor

    When the document reaches the top of the printer stack, the print monitor sends the document to the print device, where it’s actually printed. If the printer is configured to notify users that the document has been printed, you see a message confirming this.

    The specific print monitor used by Windows Server 2003 depends on the print device configuration and type. The default monitor is Localmon.dll. You might also see monitors from the print device manufacturer, such as Hpmon.dll, which is used with most Hewlett-Packard print devices. This DLL (dynamic-link library) is required to print to the print device. If it’s corrupted or missing, you might need to reinstall it.

  • Print device

    The print device is the physical device that prints documents on paper. Common print device problems and display errors include

    • Insert Paper Into Tray X
    • Low Toner
    • Out Of Paper
    • Out Of Toner; Out Of Ink
    • Paper Jam
    • Printer Offline

Group Policy can affect your ability to install and manage printers. If you’re having problems and believe they’re related to Group Policy, the key policies you’ll want to examine are those in

  • Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Printers
  • User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Printers
  • User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Start Menu And Taskbar

Adding Shutdown or Restart Reasons and Comments

Posted: May 2, 2010 in System Basics, System Information, WorkStation
Tags: ,
1

In most network environments, it’s a good idea to document the reasons for shutting down or restarting computers. With unplanned shutdowns, you can document the shutdown in the computer’s system log by expanding the syntax to include the following parameters:

/e /c "UnplannedReason" /d MajorCode:MinorCode

where /C “UnplannedReason” sets the detailed reason (which can be up to 127 characters in length) for the shutdown or restart, and /D MajorCode:MinorCode sets the reason code for the shutdown. Reason codes are arbitrary, with valid major codes ranging from 0 to 255 and valid minor reason codes ranging from 0 to 65,535. Consider the following example:

shutdown /r /e /m \\Mailer1 /c "System Reset" /d 5:15

In this example, you are restarting MAILER1 and documenting the reason for the unplanned restart as a “System Reset” using the reason code 5:15.

With planned shutdowns and restarts, prefix the reason codes with p: to indicate a planned shutdown, as shown here:

/e /c "PlannedReason" /d p:MajorCode:MinorCode

For instance, consider the following code:

shutdown /r /e /m \\Mailer1 /c "Planned Application Upgrade" /d p:4:2

Managing Restart and Shutdown of Remote Systems

Posted: May 2, 2010 in Server, System Basics, System Information, WorkStation
Tags: ,
0

With remote systems, you need to specify the UNC name or IP address of the system you want to shut down or restart using the /M parameter. Thus, the basic syntax for shutdown, restart, and cancel delayed shutdown become

Shutdown remote system:

shutdown /s /t ShutdownDelay /l /f /m \\System

Restart remote system:

shutdown /r /t ShutdownDelay /l /f /m \\System

Cancel delayed shutdown of remote computer:

shutdown /a /m \\System

In this example, MAILER1 is restarted after a 30-second delay:

shutdown /r /t 30 /m \\Mailer1

In this example, the system with the IP address 192.168.1.101 is restarted immediately and running applications are forced to stop running:

shutdown /r /f /m \\192.168.1.101

Managing Restart and Shutdown of Local Systems

Posted: May 2, 2010 in Registry, Server, System Basics, System Information, WorkStation
Tags:
0

On a local system, you can manage shutdown and restart using the following commands:

Shutdown local system:

shutdown /s /t ShutdownDelay /l /f

Restart local system:

shutdown /r /t ShutdownDelay /l /f

Cancel delayed shutdown of local computer:

shutdown /a

where /T ShutdownDelay is used to set the optional number of seconds to wait before shutdown or restart, /L optionally logs off the current user immediately, and /F optionally forces running applications to close without warning users in advance. In this example, the local system is restarted after a 60-second delay:

shutdown /r /t 60

Starting, Stopping, and Pausing Services

Posted: May 2, 2010 in Registry, Server, System Information, Uncategorized
Tags: ,
0

As an administrator, you’ll often have to start, stop, or pause Windows services. The related SC commands and their syntaxes are

Start a service:

sc start ServiceName

Pause a service:

sc pause ServiceName

Resume a paused service:

sc continue ServiceName

Stop a service:

sc stop ServiceName

where ServiceName in each case is the abbreviated name of the service you want to work with, such as

sc start w3svc

As with all SC commands, you can also specify the name of the remote computer whose services you want to work with. For example, to start the w3svc on MAILER1, you would use the following command:

sc \\Mailer1 start w3svc

The state listed in the results should show START_PENDING. With stop, pause, and continue you’ll see STOP_PENDING, PAUSE_PENDING, and CONTINUE_PENDING respectively as well. If an error results, the output states FAILED and error text is provided to describe the reason for the failure in more detail. If you are trying to start a service that is already started, you’ll see the error

An instance of the service is already running.

If you are trying to stop a service that is already stopped, you’ll see the error

The service has not been started.

Deleting Registry Keys

Posted: May 2, 2010 in Registry, System Information
Tags:
0

To delete subkeys and values from the Windows registry, use REG delete. REG delete has several different syntaxes. If you want to delete a subkey and all subkeys and entries under the subkey, use the following syntax:

reg delete KeyName

where KeyName is the name of the subkey you want to delete. Although the subkey path can include the UNC name or IP address of a remote computer, a remote source subkey can use only the HKLM or HKU root keys. Consider the following example:

reg delete \\Mailer1\HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DNS2

Here you delete the DNS2 subkey and all subkeys and entries under the subkey on MAILER1.

If you want to limit the scope of the deletion, specify that only a specific entry under the subkey should be deleted using the following syntax:

reg delete KeyName /v ValueName

where KeyName is the name of the subkey you want to work with and ValueName is the name of the specific entry to delete. As before, the subkey path can include the UNC name or IP address of a remote computer. However, a remote source subkey can use only the HKLM or HKU root keys. In this example, you delete the Description entry for the DNS2 subkey on MAILER2:

reg delete \\Mailer2\HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DNS2 /v 
Description
Older Entries
Newer Entries