Caution: Upgrading Windows to 2012 R2 may change the interface number of network interface card

Some server has specified settings wrote by command “route -p” to deal with multiple internet or intranet connections. To make it work with RRAS, the option “if <number>” must be provided with each route command.

If you’re planning to upgrade such a server to Windows Server 2012 R2, be careful, you may have to get a console connection. Through upgrading process will not failed or at least give you any warning about route settings, after it done, the interface number of NIC (network interface card) will be changed. It means you have to remove and add the related persistent routes to resume the remote connection before you can use this server again.

If you cannot get a console, you may want to disable RRAS, remove the “if <number>” parameter from the route command before upgrading.

Visual Studio 2013 Update 1 is not compatible with Windows 8.1 with Update (MSDN CD) while using sysprep

While the new installation CD named Windows 8.1 with Update launched for MSDN subscriptions user, I downloaded it and try to upgrade all the images from the Windows Deployment Service in my company. But I found the new version of Windows 8.1 might have some problem with Visual Studio 2013 Update 1.

 

Coz I need to upgrade some related images in batch, this is my way:

Create a VM and install Windows 8.1 (x64 enterprise version with update, downloaded from MSDN subscriptions site);

  1. Install Office 2013 with Service Pack 1 (VL version, coz there is a KMS in our company);
  2. Update to the latest patches;
  3. Run Cleanmgr to minimal the system;
  4. Create a snapshot named Office 2013;
  5. Use Sysprep to boot into the audit mode;
  6. Remove the current user;
  7. Use Sysprep to boot into the OOBE mode with Generalize checked;
  8. Use WDS to capture this status and upload, named as Office 2013. Before capturing, I deleted the pagefile, swap file and the contents within temp folder.

It works great.

Then,

  1. Reverse to snapshot Office 2013;
  2. Install Visual Studio 2013 with Blend, Office Developer Tools, SQL Server Data Tools, Web Developer Tools, Silverlight Development Kit; (No C++, nor mobile things)
  3. Install Update 1 from iso;
  4. Install Visual Studio SDK;
  5. Update to the latest patches;
  6. Run Cleanmgr to minimal the system;
  7. Create a snapshot named Visual Studio;
  8. Use Sysprep to boot into the audit mode;
  9. Remove the current user;
  10. Use Sysprep to boot into the OOBE mode with Generalize checked;
  11. Use WDS to capture this status and upload, named as Visual Studio. Before capturing, I deleted the pagefile, swap file and the contents within temp folder.

It looks familiar right? Actually, it WON’T WORK.

After deploy from this Visual Studio and create a new user, system end with this text:

The User Profile Service service failed the sign-in.

User profile cannot be loaded.

Even when trying to boot from the template VM in current status, it failed in the same way.

But if I try to install Team Explorer from Team Foundation Server with Update 2 CD instead, or using the Office 2013 image created above, it works like a charm. Even just use the old Windows 8.1 CD instead of the new one, it still works great.

I’ve check by using reg in command line. There is nothing wrong like this KB mentioned: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215.

I have no clue about this but just leave a message here for avoiding others go into the same jam.

 

 

Update: It fixed in VS 2013 with Update 2.

Do NOT add a boot file for WDS from Windows 6.3 (2012R2/8.1) with Update

If you have a Windows Deployment Service (WDS for short) hosted by Windows Server 2012 R2 (w or w/o update), never try to add a boot file from Windows Server 2012 R2 with Update (MSDN CD) or Windows 8.1 with Update (MSDN CD). If you do so, all capture image, no matter which version of boot file is based on, or it’s created by this server or others, just cannot work. After the loading finished, you will get an error in winload.exe with the status code 0xc000000f.

If you have been in this jam, you have to restore the whole boot folder from the backup before you attach the new version boot files. Don’t forget to stop the WDS before you replace the folder. Delete the new boot file only won’t work.


Update: There is another way to fix the broken capture image file directly. But you have to do that for every capture file. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/a164b948-1778-42bd-8d77-9cef1ca70866/image-capture-boot-image-fails-with-0xc000000f?forum=winserversetup

Do NOT add a newer boot file into an older Windows Deployment Service

In my company, there is a Windows Deployment Service (WDS for short) hosted by Windows Server 2012 R2. Since I got the new release of Windows Server yesterday, named Windows Server 2012 R2 with Update, I added the boot.wim from the new CD into this server and began my nightmare.

Result: All boot images from installation CD work great. But all capture images are failed to start, no matter the capture image is pre-existed, new created or copied from other servers. They’re failed in 2 ways:

  • Error in \Windows\System32\boot\winload.exe with status code 0xc000000f after the loading bar completed; or,
  • Black screen after displaying the Windows logo.

To fix this, I’ve tried to remove the new added boot image but this trying is ineffective. Finally, I googled and find there is a person who added a Windows 8 Preview boot file into an old WDS server, which lead to the similar result. The way to fix is:

  1. Stop the WDS;
  2. Restore the Boot folder from a previous version; and,
  3. Restart the WDS.

If you don’t have backup, you may need to reinstall WDS.

I guess when you add a new boot image into a WDS, it will update the existed boot folder to the latest version, which may not be compatible with other boot files. Maybe it will be fixed after patching the server OS, but it’s better never to do such a thing again.


Update: There is another way to fix the broken capture image file directly. But you have to do that for every capture file. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/a164b948-1778-42bd-8d77-9cef1ca70866/image-capture-boot-image-fails-with-0xc000000f?forum=winserversetup

Enable Remote Management for Hyper-V Server

After a clean installation process, firewall of Hyper-V Server is set to deny any remote connection by default.

If you need to management other than using console, you may want to enable inbound rules for Remote Management and Remote Desktop by running these commands in the console.

To enable the Remote Management:

cscript C:\windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /im 1

To enable the Remote Desktop:

cscript C:\windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /ar 0

And, you need to enable the remote desktop from the sconfig (the blue console window) also.

AVMA: An easier way to activate Windows Server 2012 R2 in Hyper-V

Microsoft provides a new way to activate VMs hosted in Hyper-V, named Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA). It makes the activation step of VMs much easier.

Requirement:

  • Hypervisor: Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter with Hyper-V role. Other versions are not supported. Dedicated Hyper-V Server is not supported.
  • VM: Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter, Standard and Essentials.

Steps:

  1. Prepare and activate your Hypervisor;
  2. Install supported OS as VM with the key listed below, or change the key of an installed VM with command “slmgr /ipk <key>”.

Keys:

  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter: Y4TGP-NPTV9-HTC2H-7MGQ3-DV4TW
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard: DBGBW-NPF86-BJVTX-K3WKJ-MTB6V
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials: K2XGM-NMBT3-2R6Q8-WF2FK-P36R2

These keys are supported to being used in any unattend.exe setup file also.

 

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn303421.aspx

Remove unwanted IP addresses belong to Domain Controllers from DNS

If you have multiple IP addresses on domain controller and do not want to publish them all to local DNS, the original way may not help because no matter how you setup, all the interfaces can still access the DNS (localhost).

In this case, you can do this by editing the registry directly.

Open regedit.exe from Domain Controller, navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\DNS\Parameters, add a string value, named as PublishAddresses, and set the value to the IP address which you want to be published to DNS.

Don’t forget to reboot and delete the existed unwanted records from DNS manually.