1. Windows Server 2003 { First Steps and Administration} Benedikt Riedel MCSE + Messaging www.go-unified.comwww.go-unified.com www.siemens.com/openwww.siemens.com/open Benedikt.riedel@siemens.com

2. The Default Windows 2003 Server Desktop 23.10.20082 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

3. To generate the default Desktop icons right click the empty desktop press properties go to the Desktop tab select Customize Desktop and tick the boxes under General as per this picture 23.10.20083 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

4. Right click the new My Computer icon and select Properties 23.10.20084 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

5. Check the OS version, service pack level and physical equipment e.g. CPU and Memory to ensure the system requirements are met. 23.10.20085 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

6. Change to the Remote tab and tick the Allow users to connect remotely to this computer check box. This will enable remote desktop. 23.10.20086 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

7. Select the Advanced tab and press Settings in the Performance section 23.10.20087 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

8. Select the Data Execution Prevention and enable the top setting Turn on DEP for essential Windows… 23.10.20088 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

9. In the Advanced tab ensure background services and system cache is selected and press Change in the virtual memory section 23.10.20089 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

10. Select Custom size and enter twice the amount of your physical memory. Select a partition with enough empty space for the Paging File and press SET 23.10.200810 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

11. After pressing OK select the Error Reporting button and tick Disable error reporting and tick the notify me box 23.10.200811 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

12. Open the Web browser, press Tools and Windows Update. Follow the website to install every! available windows update by pressing the Customer button. DO NOT LEAVE A SERVER UNPATCHED 23.10.200812 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

13. Ensure all available High Priority and Software Updates are selected before you press Install Updates 23.10.200813 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

14. Wait until the update is complete and reboot the server 23.10.200814 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

15. Now remove some unnecessary pieces of software on the server. Press Start – Control Panel – Add or Remove Programs 23.10.200815 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

16. Remove every box except Microsoft.NET Framework and the General top box. Press Next and Finish to complete the removal. 23.10.200816 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

17. Download and install the programs written below. It is BGInfo for some additional desktop info, TCP View a port analyzer, WinRAR a compression tool that supports.zip and.rar and a text editior Notepad++ http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar380.exe http://downloads.sourceforge.net/notepad- plus/npp.5.0.3.Installer.exe?modtime=121778 2718&big_mirror=0 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/notepad- plus/npp.5.0.3.Installer.exe?modtime=121778 2718&big_mirror=0 23.10.200817 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

18. Save them on the Desktop to have them for maybe future use or different servers 23.10.200818 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

19. Setup Bginfo with the settings you require. Below an example configuration 23.10.200819 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

20. To view and or disable programs that start on system start or as services press Start – Run – fill in msconfig and hit OK 23.10.200820 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

21. In the services tab check the Hide All Microsoft Services box to have a nice overview and disable the services you do not require on startup. 23.10.200821 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

22. On the Start-up tab you find all programs starting as soon a user logins into the machine. E.g. Administrator 23.10.200822 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

23. To monitor the system performance press Start – Run – enter perfmon and hit OK 23.10.200823 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

24. For the HDD performance Add the Counters for the Phyiscal Disk and just enable Average Disk Read Queue Length and Current Disk Queue Length. Monitor the performance if the values are continuously above 80% you have an issue with the HDD speed and should consider changing same. 23.10.200824 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

25. To monitor the Network performance select the Network Interface object and the Sent and Received Bytes information for all / a single adapter. 23.10.200825 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

26. To monitor the default operating system events open the event viewer with pressing Start – Run – enter eventvwr and press OK 23.10.200826 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

27. The event log is split in four options. The most import one for the servers operation are Application and System. Just ensure you don’t see too many red messages. 23.10.200827 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

28. To test the remote access setup earlier press Start – Run and enter mstsc and hit OK 23.10.200828 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

29. As computer select your localhost (127.0.0.1) and hit Connect 23.10.200829 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

30. If you see the login prompt everything is OK 23.10.200830 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

31. Some useful DOS commands: systeminfo | find “System Up Time” will output the time the operating system is running 23.10.200831 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

32. Ipconfig /all outputs every detail about the network adapters e.g. IP, Subnet Mask, Gateway, DNS, DHCP Server and MAC Address 23.10.200832 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

33. Ipconfig /release will release the dynamically assigned IP address (Do not perform this while logged on remotely) 23.10.200833 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

34. Ipconfig /renew will request new IP configuration from a DHCP server 23.10.200834 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

35. Ipconfig /registerdns will register the PC with a DNS server that you can reach the machine using its hostname instead IP 23.10.200835 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

36. Ipconfig /flushdns will empty the local DNS cache of the server 23.10.200836 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

37. Ping will perform a ICMP network test to see if a destination device can be reached. 23.10.200837 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

38. Nslookup will test the DNS settings and show you the DNS server answering your question and the IP address of the destination 23.10.200838 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

39. Tracert will display the route to a destination and show every router in between interesting for troubleshooting 23.10.200839 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

40. Tasklist displays every process running on the server and taskkill /pid will shut the process in question down 23.10.200840 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

41. Whoami displays the current logged on user and hostname the machines hostname 23.10.200841 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

42. The taskmanager is the graphical answer to tasklist and has some additional features to open press Start – Run – enter taskmgr and hit OK 23.10.200842 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

43. The Users tab shows the currently logged on users to the machine. By right clicking you can interact with the other users. The ID 0 is the console shell (directly on the server) and can be used remotely as well using the command mstsc /console (mstsc = 6.5) 23.10.200843 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration

44. The performance tab shows the current CPU load and memory usage as well as the Page file consumption. 23.10.200844 Benedikt Riedel - Windows Server 2003 First Steps and Administration