Windows Server 2008 Installation steps....


How to Install Windows Server 2008 Step by Step



Installing Windows Server 2008 is pretty straightforward and is very much like installing Windows Vista, but I thought I'd list the necessary steps here for additional information. For those of you who have never installed Vista before, the entire installation process is different than it used to be in previous Microsoft operating systems, and notably much easier to perform.

Using Vista's installation routine is a major benefit, especially for a server OS. Administrators can partition the system's hard drives during setup. More importantly, they can install the necessary AHCI or RAID storage drivers from a CD/DVD or even a USB thumb drive. Thus, error-prone floppies can finally be sent to the garbage bin.

Cloud Computing Scenarios for Your Business
Note: Windows Server 2008 can also be installed as a Server Core installation, which is a cut-down version of Windows without the Windows Explorer GUI. Because you don’t have the Windows Explorer to provide the GUI interface that you are used to, you configure everything through the command line interface or remotely using a Microsoft Management Console (MMC). The Server Core can be used for dedicated machines with basic roles such as Domain controller/Active Directory Domain Services, DNS Server, DHCP Server, file server, print server, Windows Media Server, IIS 7 web server and Windows Server Virtualization virtual server. For Server Core installations please see my "Installing Windows Server 2008 Core" article.
To use Windows Server 2008 you need to meet the following hardware requirements:
ComponentRequirement
Processor• Minimum: 1GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4GHz (x64 processor) • Recommended: 2GHz or faster Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
Memory• Minimum: 512MB RAM • Recommended: 2GB RAM or greater • Maximum (32-bit systems): 4GB (Standard) or 64GB (Enterprise and Datacenter) • Maximum (64-bit systems): 32GB (Standard) or 2TB (Enterprise, Datacenter and Itanium-based Systems)
Available Disk Space• Minimum: 10GB • Recommended: 40GB or greater Note: Computers with more than 16GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files
DriveDVD-ROM drive
Display and Peripherals• Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor • Keyboard • Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
Upgrade notes:
I will not discuss the upgrade process in this article, but for your general knowledge, the upgrade paths available for Windows Server 2008 shown in the table below:
If you are currently running:You can upgrade to:
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2)Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2)Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2)Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition
Follow this procedure to install Windows Server 2008:
1. Insert the appropriate Windows Server 2008 installation media into your DVD drive. If you don't have an installation DVD for Windows Server 2008, you can download one for free from Microsoft's Windows 2008 Server Trial website.
2. Reboot the computer.
3. When prompted for an installation language and other regional options, make your selection and press Next.
4. Next, press Install Now to begin the installation process.
5. Product activation is now also identical with that found in Windows Vista. Enter yourProduct ID in the next window, and if you want to automatically activate Windows the moment the installation finishes, click Next.
If you do not have the Product ID available right now, you can leave the box empty, and click Next. You will need to provide the Product ID later, after the server installation is over. Press No.



6. Because you did not provide the correct ID, the installation process cannot determine what kind of Windows Server 2008 license you own, and therefore you will be prompted to select your correct version in the next screen, assuming you are telling the truth and will provide the correct ID to prove your selection later on.
7. If you did provide the right Product ID, select the Full version of the right Windows version you're prompted, and click Next.
8. Read and accept the license terms by clicking to select the checkbox and pressing Next.
9. In the "Which type of installation do you want?" window, click the only available option –Custom (Advanced).
10. In the "Where do you want to install Windows?", if you're installing the server on a regular IDE hard disk, click to select the first disk, usually Disk 0, and click Next.
If you're installing on a hard disk that's connected to a SCSI controller, click Load Driver and insert the media provided by the controller's manufacturer.
If you're installing in a Virtual Machine environment, make sure you read the "Installing the Virtual SCSI Controller Driver for Virtual Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008"
If you must, you can also click Drive Options and manually create a partition on the destination hard disk.
11. The installation now begins, and you can go and have lunch. Copying the setup files from the DVD to the hard drive only takes about one minute. However, extracting and uncompressing the files takes a good deal longer. After 20 minutes, the operating system is installed. The exact time it takes to install server core depends upon your hardware specifications. Faster disks will perform much faster installs… Windows Server 2008 takes up approximately 10 GB of hard drive space.
The installation process will reboot your computer, so, if in step #10 you inserted a floppy disk (either real or virtual), make sure you remove it before going to lunch, as you'll find the server hanged without the ability to boot (you can bypass this by configuring the server to boot from a CD/DVD and then from the hard disk in the booting order on the server's BIOS)
12. Then the server reboots you'll be prompted with the new Windows Server 2008 type of login screen. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to log in.
13. Click on Other User.
14. The default Administrator is blank, so just type Administrator and press Enter.
15. You will be prompted to change the user's password. You have no choice but to press Ok.
16. In the password changing dialog box, leave the default password blank (duh, read step #15…), and enter a new, complex, at-least-7-characters-long new password twice. A password like "topsecret" is not valid (it's not complex), but one like "T0pSecreT!" sure is. Make sure you remember it.
17. Someone thought it would be cool to nag you once more, so now you'll be prompted to accept the fact that the password had been changed. Press Ok.
18. Finally, the desktop appears and that's it, you're logged on and can begin working. You will be greeted by an assistant for the initial server configuration, and after performing some initial configuration tasks, you will be able to start working.

NAT in Windows 2003: Setup and Configuration

NAT in Windows 2003: 

Setup and Configuration

This article will describe how to setup and configure NAT in Windows 2003. NAT, or Network Address Translation, is a widely used IP translation and mapping protocol that works on the network layer (level 3) of the OSI model. It is sometimes referred to as a routing protocol because of the way it allows packets from a private network to be routed to the Internet.


NAT acts as a middle man between the internal and external network; packets coming from the private network are handled by NAT and then transferred to their intended destination.
A single external address is used on the Internet so that the internal IP addresses are not shown. A table is created on the router that lists local and global addresses and uses it as a reference when translating IP addresses.
NAT can work in several ways:
Static NAT
An unregistered IP address is mapped to a registered IP address on a one-to-one basis - which is useful when a device needs to be accessed from outside the network.
Dynamic NAT
An unregistered IP address is mapped to a registered IP address from a group of registered IP addresses. For example, a computer 192.168.10.121 will translate to the first available IP in a range from 212.156.98.100 to 212.156.98.150.
Overloading
A form of dynamic NAT, it maps multiple unregistered IP addresses to a single registered IP address, but in this case uses different ports. For example, IP address 192.168.10.121 will be mapped to 212.56.128.122:port_number (212.56.128.122:1080).
Overlapping
This when addresses in the inside network overlap with addresses in the outside network - the IP addresses are registered on another network too. The router must maintain a lookup table of these addresses so that it can intercept them and replace them with registered unique IP addresses.

How NAT works

A table of information about each packet that passes through is maintained by NAT.
When a computer on the network attempts to connect to a website on the Internet:
  • the header of the source IP address is changed and replaced with the IP address of the NAT computer on the way out
  • the "destination" IP address is changed (based on the records in the table) back to the specific internal private class IP address in order to reach the computer on the local network on the way back in
Network Address Translation can be used as a basic firewall – the administrator is able to filter out packets to/from certain IP addresses and allow/disallow access to specified ports. It is also a means of saving IP addresses by having one IP address represent a group of computers.

Setting up NAT

To setup NAT you must start by opening the Configure your server wizard in administrative tools and selecting the RRAS/VPN Server role. Now press next and the RRAS setup wizard will open. The screen below shows the Internet Connection screen in which you must specify which type of connection to the Internet and whether or not you want the basic firewall feature to be enabled.
Press next to continue. The installation process will commence and services will be restarted, after which the finish screen will be displayed - showing what actions have taken place.

Configuring NAT

Configuration of NAT takes place from the Routing and Remote Access mmc found in the Administrative Tools folder in the Control Panel or on the start menu.
The screenshot below shows the routing and remote access mmc.
Select which interface you wish to configure and double click it. This will bring up the properties window giving you the option to change settings such as packet filtering and port blocking, as well as enabling/disabling certain features, such as the firewall.
The remote router (set up previously) properties box is shown below. The NAT/Basic Firewall tab is selected.
You are able to select the interface type – to specify what the network connection will be. In my example I have selected for the interface to be a public interface connected to the internet. NAT and the basic firewall option have also been enabled. The inbound and outbound buttons will open a window that will allow you restrict traffic based on IP address or protocol packet attributes. As per your instructions, certain TCP packets will be dropped before they reach the client computer. Thus, making the network safer and giving you more functionality. This is useful if, for example, you wanted to reject all packets coming from a blacklisted IP address or restrict internal users access to port 21 (ftp).
For further firewall configuration, go to the Services and Ports tab. Here you can select which services you would like to provide your users access to. You can also add more services by specifying details such as the incoming and outgoing port number.
The list of services shown in the above screenshot are preset. Press Add to bring up the window that will allow the creation of a new service or select an available service and press Edit to modify that service. You will be asked to specify the name, TCP and UDP port number and the IP address of the computer hosting that service.
If the services in the list aren’t enabled then any client computer on the Windows 2003 domain will not be able to access that specific service. For example, if the computer was configured as shown in the image above and a client computer tried to connect to an ftp site, he would be refused access. This section can prove to be very useful for any sized networks, but especially small ones.
That concludes this article. As you have seen, Network Address Translation is a useful feature that adds diversity and security to a network in a small to medium sized company. With the advent, and implementation, of IPv6 still in its beginning stages, we can expect to see NAT being used for many years to come.