Category: Windows Server 2012 R2

Adding a GUI Back to Windows Server Core

The other day I had the occasion where I wanted to add back the Windows Server 2012 R2 GUI to a server core installation. This was a test environment, and for what I was testing I felt the GUI provided a more streamlined experience. Server core certainly has its places,...

Windows Server 2012 R2 Two-Tier PKI CA Pt. 3

Now that we have our Windows Server 2012 R2 certificate authority configured in Part 1, and our subordinate setup in Part 2, now we should setup autoenrollment and secure the subordinate's web certificate services with SSL. Autoenrollment is where domain joined Windows computers are automatically issued a computer certificate. Services such...

Windows Server 2012 R2 Two-Tier PKI CA Pt. 2

Now that our root Windows Server 2012 R2 certificate authority is installed and published to Active Directory from Part 1, it is time to bring online our subordinate CA. The subordinate CA will be our online issuing CA, since it will be the CA which issues all certificates, be they for users,...

Windows Server 2012 R2 Two-Tier PKI CA Pt. 1

Windows Server 2012 R2 Two-Tier PKI CA Pt. 1

While I have written a number of articles focused on SSL certificates and templates, I have not done a mini-series on how to actually install a Windows Certificate Authority. For this series I'm using Windows Server 2012 R2, but the steps are pretty much identical for Windows Server 2012. Microsoft...

Download Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Now!

TechEd 2013 had a bunch of great sessions on Windows Server 2012 R2, which has a boatload of new features. You can now download Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview version now. Pick up your copy here. Windows 8.1 release preview will come out tomorrow, but you can get a jump start on...

TechEd: IaaS with the Azure Pack (MDC-B364)

This session covers how to develop on-prem IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) using the Azure pack for Windows Server 2012 R2 and VMM 2012 R2. The session was more developer oriented than I thought from the description, so I ended up leaving a bit early since I'm not a developer....

TechEd: Windows Server 2012 R2 IPAM for Clouds (MDC-B376)

Starting off Day 3 of TechEd 2013 is a session on Windows Server 2012 R2 networking for cloud services. He covers what's new in Windows Server 2012 R2 IPAM (and touching on DNS and DHCP). Windows Server 2012 shipped with major new features, and R2 builds on those features and better integrates...

TechEd: Storage Management with VMM 2012 R2 (MDC-B344)

This session focused on both the platform storage enhances in Windows Server 2012 R2 in addition to VMM 2012 R2. Microsoft was very up front that the 2012 release baked in a huge amount of technology into the platform (OS), but not all of it was exposed through VMM 2012...

TechEd: Building Clouds on Server 2012 R2 (MDC-B312)

This session was a firehose of information on the design considerations when building your private cloud based on Server 2012 R2. There are ton of new features in WS2012 and R2, so this was a high level roadmap on how to figure out what you want to implement. Bottom line...

TechEd: What’s new in SC VMM 2012 R2 (MDC-B357)

This session was mostly a demo of VMM 2012, where the speaker also covered some enhancements in the upcoming R2 release. Many of the Hyper-V 2012 R2 features have already been covered in other sessions, so there wasn't a lot of new content. But he did a good walk through...