Some of the benefits of using Remote Desktop Connection Manager is:

• FREE!
• EASY to use!
• It allows you to group several servers into groups.
• Passwords are encrypted when you save them
• You can move fluently between many different servers at a time.
• Write notes about each server
• Save your configuration and copy them to other workstations

Being a consultant I can’t begin to tell you how much time this saves me. If you’ve never used Remote Desktop Connection Manager I don’t know what you are waiting for!

You will need to open a command prompt and type this command: adprep /forestprep

Once run you will see something similar. Type “C” and hit enter.

Still in the same command prompt window we will need to update the domain info. We do this by typing: adprep /forestprep

*NOTE*

If you get the error above you need to configure the domain to be in Windows 2003 mode.

Re-run the adprep /domainprep command. If successful you will see something like this:

Next run this command:  adprep /rodcprep

Run “Dcpromo” from the Windows 2008 server you want to make a DC

Add a domain controller to an existing domain.

Type in domain name and enter credentials

The rest of the items are pretty much NEXT, NEXT, NEXT type questions. At the end of the install you will need to restart the server.

1. Open a Command Prompt.
2. Type the following command to display the time difference between the local computer and a target computer, and then press ENTER: (without quotation mark) “w32tm /stripchart /computer: time.windows.com /samples:5 /dataonly”
3. Open UDP port 123 for outgoing traffic if needed.
4. Open UDP port 123 (or a different port you have selected) for incoming NTP traffic.
5. Type the following command to configure the PDC emulator and then press ENTER: (without quotation mark) “w32tm /config /manualpeerlist: time.windows.com /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update“

The computers that are joined to a domain are configured to synchronize from a manual time source. Please use the following procedure to configure a client computer that is currently synchronizing with a manually specified computer, to automatically synchronize time with the domain hierarchy. You may follow the steps to configure a client computer for automatic domain time synchronization

1. Open a Command Prompt.
2. Type the following command and then press ENTER: w32tm /config /syncfromflags: domhier /update
3. Type the following command and then press ENTER: net stop w32time
4. Type the following command and then press ENTER: net start w32time

You may also use Group Policy to make all the domain clients to sync time with PDC emulator in the domain. You may find the Group Policy settings used to configure W32Time in the Group Policy Object Editor snap-in in the following locations:

1. Configure Global Configuration Settings here: Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Windows Time Service
2. Configure Windows NTP Client settings here: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Windows Time Service\Time

Providers More reference: How to configure an authoritative time server in Windows Server 2003: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042/en-us

Windows Time Service Best practices: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/517e74d7-40e9-41bd-93aa-48b610b936321033.mspx?mfr=true

1. Registry – Using the regedit tool you can find this registry entry. It will tell you where it’s located – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
2. Group Policy – You will need to open up the “Group Policy Management” look through all the “Group Policy Objects” entries and figure out which one is responsible for WSUS. The setting is located in “Computer Configuration – Policies – Administrative Templates – Windows Components – Windows Updates”.

Hope this helps someone!

• Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the synthetic network controller and the synthetic storage controller that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
• Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices now take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
• Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
• Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager, using the "Shut Down" command.
• Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.

1. Download Linux Integration Components v2.1

a. Download Linux Integration Components v2.1 from Microsoft Download site.

b. Extract the .exe file into a temp folder. You will need only LinuxIC v21.iso file.

c. Place the LinuxIC v21.iso file into your VM host server where you can mount the ISO as a CDROM for your Centon Virtual Machine.

2. Installation

You will need Development Tools installed to be able to compile the Integration Components. You could do that by running yum:

yum groupinstall "Development Tools"

NOTE: This command will try to use your network connection to download and if you used Synthetic Network Adapter for your Hyper-V machine you will not have internet connection. So make sure to install Development Tools during your Centos initial installation.

Now make sure you added LinuxIC v21.iso file to your Hyper-V CDROM as Image.

As the root user, mount the CD in the virtual machine by issuing the following commands at a shell prompt:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Copy Linux Integration Services to the virtual machine and unmount CDROM that no longer needed:

mkdir /opt/linux_ic_v21_rtm
cp –R /mnt/cdrom/* /opt/linux_ic_v21_rtm
umount /mnt/cdrom

As the root user, run the following command to compile and install the synthetic drivers:

cd /opt/linux_ic_v21_rtm/
make
make install

NOTE: If you’re using the x64 version of Centos, you have perform an extra step.

Attach the Centos ISO that was used for installation in the virtual machine, and mount it:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Install the adjtimex RPM for more accurate time keeping in the virtual machine:

rpm –ivh /mnt/cdrom/Centos/adjtimex-1.20-2.1.x86_64.rpm

To verify that all subcomponents are running,, as the root user, issue the following command at a shell prompt:

/sbin/lsmod | grep vsc

Please remmeber when using Network Adapters on Hyper-V, NIC names would be changed from eth0 to seth0.

Uninstalling Linux Integration Services

To uninstall Linux Integration Services, follow these steps.

1. From the Linux virtual machine, browse to the location where the installation files were copied (for example, /opt/linux).

2. From the command line, run the following command: make uninstall

3. Open /boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.conf and remove the noprobe entries from the boot entries.

4. Restore the initrd image to the original file. For example:

To configure the Synthetic Storage Controller:

cp /boot/initrd-2.6.16.60-0.54.5-smp.backup0 /boot/initrd-2.6.16.60-0.54.5-smp

5. Reboot the virtual machine.

See original article here: http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-linux-integration-services-v2.1-hyper-v-r2-on-centos-5

It makes sense I guess, you wouldn’t normally have a SERVER that requires a wireless connection – hence, it’s OFF by default. To turn on the Wireless LAN Service in Windows 2008 r2 Server you will need to follow these steps in order get access:

•Open the Features list
•Scroll to the bottom, and choose Wireless LAN Service

After this has been installed, you (may) also need to start the service :

•Open Administrative Tools > Services
•Location the WLAN AutoConfig service
•Make sure it’s set to automatically start
•….and start it up, if not already running

You should then be able to add a Windows Network connection, and you’ll be online in no time.  

This is essential for grabbing updates, and some web surfing – although there are always a multitude of prompts & message boxes – sometimes can be a hassle.

Hope you found this article helpful on how to use Wifi card on Windows 2008 R2 Server.