P2V - OEM Windows OS

So here I am up at 4:00AM on a Sunday morning having spent the past 4 hours on the phone with Microsoft Licensing/Professional Services/Partner support only to confirm what various google searches tell me that the OEM Windows key must die with physical server.  In a nutshell, this is what needs to happen in order to my virtualized copy activated.

1)  Get VLK media
2)  Get VL Key
3)  Boot VM to it
4)  Select option to install Windows
5)  Select option to repair it (note this is not the recovery console which is what you would get if you selected "r" on the previous screen.
6)  Next > next wizard and type in your VL key

Reboot and we're done here.

PS - This was on server 2003 standard

Windows Server 2012 - Unofficially convert RC to RTM

Completely out of the blue, a 2012 server rebooted on me today. Being the first time I've seen a 2012 server reboot for no apparent reason, I was intrigued to find out what caused it.  After logging into the console, I am hit with a notice that my evaluation had expired. Evaluation what the???

Did a quick search, and no problem MS has a KB on this. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj574204.aspx

From an elevated command prompt, run slmgr.vbs /dlv; evaluation versions will include “EVAL” in the output.

Ok, I don't see the words "EVAL" anywhere but I figured I would see what happens when I jump straight to the convert command.

DISM /online /Set-Edition:<edition ID> /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX /AcceptEula

This Windows image cannot upgrade to the edition of Windows that was specified. The upgrade cannot proceed. Run the /Get-TargetEditions option to see what edition of Windows you can upgrade to.



Ugh, it turned out that I was running RC version of 2012 Datacenter and the only supported path to upgrade would be to fresh install 2012 from scratch.

Searched for workarounds and found these sources.

• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserver8gen/thread/6b1db612-84d3-46f1-abc7-740a1c0a5d8c/
• http://www.neowin.net/news/fool-the-windows-8-rtm-into-upgrading-the-release-preview

It appears that this has been used for Win7, 8 and 2012. The steps are quite simple and go like this.

• Copy RTM install media to the local disk of the target server needing to be converted
• Edit \sources\cversion.ini (I changed from 8508.0 to 8400.0) which was posted by a guy in the first link who had success with this method.
• Run the setup/install from local disk and next > next > activate your problems away assuming you have a valid key.

Lastly, this was a VMware virtual machine running on vmx-09 and it lost it's IP settings during the upgrade.  Added back the IP and all is well.

Simple robocopy mirror

Simple batch script I run to mirror a local directory containing SQL flat file backups to a network share though it can be used to sync anything.

net use x: "\\10.20.30.40\path\replicated_sql_backups" /u:domain\username password
robocopy "C:\local_sql_backups" x: /MIR /FFT /Z /W:5
net use x: /delete

Default cluster size for NTFS

In reference to staging large NTFS volumes.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140365

Default cluster sizes for NTFS

The following table describes the default cluster sizes for NTFS.
Volume size    Windows NT 3.51    Windows NT 4.0    Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000
7 MB–512 MB    512 bytes    4 KB    4 KB
512 MB–1 GB    1 KB    4 KB    4 KB
1 GB–2 GB    2 KB    4 KB    4 KB
2 GB–2 TB    4 KB    4 KB    4 KB
2 TB–16 TB    Not Supported*    Not Supported*    4 KB
16TB–32 TB    Not Supported*    Not Supported*    8 KB
32TB–64 TB    Not Supported*    Not Supported*    16 KB
64TB–128 TB    Not Supported*    Not Supported*    32 KB
128TB–256 TB    Not Supported*    Not Supported*    64 KB
> 256 TB    Not Supported    Not Supported    Not Supported

Note The asterisk (*) means that it is not supported because of the limitations of the master boot record (MBR).

SSL certificate renewal 1024-bit to 2048-bit

So I needed to renew an SSL web certificate that was purchased a few years ago using 1024-bit RSA keys. Problem is that I can't simply renew the current certificate because of the 2048-bit standard imposed by all CA's and I can't create a new CSR for my site as it is currently active with an existing SSL certificate. Some quick research shows that creating a temp site to generate the new CSR seems to work best with very minimal downtime.  This was performed on a Windows 2003 Server running IIS6.

Thawte's notes on the move to 2048.



1.  Create a temp site in IIS (make sure it is stopped)
 

2.  On the temp site right click > Properties > Directory Security > Server Certificate



 3.  Select Create a new certificate



 4.  Select Prepare the request now, but send it later



5.  Enter a name for the new certificate and select a big length of 2048



6.  Organization and Organization unit - Keep defaults as



7.   Common name = FQDN for your site (i.e. - secure.somedomain.com)



8.   Enter geographical information



9.  Enter a path for the CSR



10.  Confirm setting, click next, then finish.

11.  Renew the certificate by submitting this CSR to your CA.

12.  Once the CA approves and issues your certificate, download it to a local drive.

13.  Right click the tempsite created earlier > Properties > Directory Security > Server Certificate > Process the pending request and install the certificate.



14.  Browse to the path where you saved the Certificate.



15.  Leave the default SSL port.



16.  Verify information on the Certificate Summary screen.

17.  Click finish

18.  Use the View Certificate button to confirm the certificate installation was successfull.



19.  Now in order to move this certificate to to the real site, we must access the Directory Security tab of the real web site.

20.  Click Server Certificate followed by Replace the current certificate



21.  Select the certificate that was previously installed to the tempsite.



22.  Confirm details and click finish.

23.  Check with your CA vendor documentation to see if any intermediate CA certificates need to be installed.

24.  Delete the tempsite created in Step 1.

25.  Done!