How to distribute Windows Server codename Longhorn Beta 3?

Iain McDonald (Director, Windows Server Team) has done an interesting video on the brainstorming process for distribution methods.

Have fun!

Steve

Windows Server Codename “Longhorn” – Initial Configuration

After installing the server, it is time now to configure it.

The “Initial Configuration Wizard” is there to help us

• Provide computer information
  • administrator account name and password
  • time zone
  • network settings
  • computer name and domain
• Update settings
• Roles and Features (will not be covered in this post)
• Remote Desktop (will not be covered in this post)

This is how the wizard looks like:

We start by setting the administrator account name and password:

Then we check the time and timezone:

By default, the timezone is set to Pacific Time. Let’s change this to something more closer .

Looks better:

Then, we go the network settings. Nothing new in there compared to Vista:

I chose to set a fix IP address for this first server:

Then, it is time to set a name. It will be SRO-LH-01. No domain yet, as I intend to make it a Domain Controller in the coming days:

The system must be restarted to activate its new name:

Just to make sure that we really reboot:

As we have set a password on the administrator account, the server requires us to log on:

Which, of course, we do:

Then we continue with the configuration and take care of the update and feedback settings:

I chose to go for the manual configuration:

For Windows update, I decide to let Windows download the updates but that I would choose when and what to install:

Concerning the error reporting, I chose the default option:

Finally, I decided not to particapte to the Customer Experience Improvement Program, mainly because the server won’t be connected to Internet anymore after Longhorn is activated:

This concludes the initial configuration of the server. At this point, the server is ready for the addition of roles/features.

I will cover some of these roles in further posts.

Steve

Windows Server Codename “Longhorn” – Basic Installation

OK, now that I have downloaded the ISO of Longhorn beta 3 (took me 18 hours – looks like many folks were doing the same thing yesterday), let’s install a server.

In my case, it’ll be another virtual machine running within Virtual PC 2007.

So let’s see how the installation occurs. You will quickly see it looks like a Vista installation .

So, after starting the server (with the installation ISO image captured), this is what we’ve got:

 

Then, you’re prompted to select the language, regional settings and keyboard:

Click “Install now” to start the “Collect Information” step of the process:

You may enter the product key at this stage:

If you don’t enter any product key, the install will not be able to determine which version needs to be installed. Therefore, it asks you to pick up the version:

If you have a product key for the Enterprise version, you are then entitled to install either Enterprise or Enterprise Core versions (same mechanism for standard edition).

Afterwards, you need to accept the license terms:

Then you can choose to either upgrade a current installation or go for the custom installation of Longhorn:

Then, you have to choose where to install Windows (by clicking on “Drive options”, you can create/format/… partitions):

Then, the step “Installing Windows” starts: 

At some point, the server will reboot (can occur several times): 

Euh… Windows Vista??

After the reboot, the installation goes on:

Then, the desktop is being prepared:

and…… there you go:

The server is now installed . In a next post, il will cover the initial configuration of the server: name, admin password, network settings, …

Steve