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
