I got a new shiny machine at home with lots of RAM, Disk space and six cores.  This allowed me to setup the following environment

• Two host machines running windows 2012 R2 with hyper-v
• 1 domain controller
• 1 Server running System Center 2012 R2 Orchestrator
• 1 Server running System Center 2012 R2 operations manager
• 1 Server running System Center 2012 R2 configuration manager

 

I downloaded the evaluations from MSDN and evaluation center. 

OS
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dn205286.aspx

SCCM
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/dn205297

I downloaded Orchestrator and SCOM from MSDN

For the most part, everything installed cleanly.  A few to-do’s I have yet to confirm and figure out

• Windows firewall being enabled
• SQL RM0 Error when installing SCCM.  I found the sqlclini.msi was zero byte file.  I downloaded an SCCM 2012 SP1 version.  Once I copied the \server1$AppsSC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCCM_SCEPSMSSETUPBINX64sqlncli.msi, SCCM installed cleanly. 
• I’ve also ran into a couple issues where the default gateway wouldn’t set, one on my domain controller.  After I ran route delete 0.0.0.0 and set it manually a couple times, things worked. 

 

I’m in the process of adding SCVMM 2012 R2 to another server.  I have to P2V my one host, which is running windows 2012 w/SP1.  This will allow me to learn the P2V and also update my one host to Server 2012 R2.  I tried to allow live replication between my one host running 2012 SP1 and 2012 R2.  I get an error.  I’m not a VM guru, so this hopefully learn a bit more about SCVMM, App Controller

Other goals…

• Learn OSD
• Live Replication
• P2V
• SCCM Application module
• APM management pack

 

Stay tuned for more blog posts.  Oh btw, I’ll be tinkering with IIS 8.5 and the new logging features

Happy Geeking,

Steve Schofield

Microsoft MVP – IIS

Oh the stories I could talk about regarding win 8 pre-loaded on a OEM box.  A few weeks back I picked up a nice desktop (refurb) for under $500.  It’s a 1.5 TB HD, 10 GB ram, 6 core processor.  Besides this being an awesome box with lots of goodies, I can’t believe the price.  Anywho, the reason I like to have such a decent box is play with software, usually the latest and greatest. Any geek usually has a little rouge setup in their house to test things like beta releases or do other crazy stuff they can’t or won’t do in a hosting or enterprise setting. 

When my box arrived, I was pretty geeked.  Being a lifelong server based IT geek, the first thing was to get rid of win8…..or so I thought.  I popped the disk into the drive, booted up, and I got this error….”

“The product key entered does not match any of the Windows images available for installation. Enter a different product key”

I’ve been out of the server OS build business a while, so I searched around and found on new win8 OEM boxes, the license key is embedded to the firmware…smart I’d say.  The down side, there is a particular order checking for the license key.  In my case, using a DVD was something I’ve done in the past on other machines.  Guess, MS wanted to make it a little harder.  Who knows! 

The end result I packed the machine up and set on the shelf for three weeks while I traveled.  It seemed to come down to the point I needed to build an unattended install to get my Server OS to boot to the DVD and look for the license key, bypassing the BIOS lookup.  The unattended install could use DISM or imageX.  Being rusty at building an unattended install, all I wanted to do was load a server OS like I’ve done in the past using a DVD.  I guess this machine wasn’t meant for win 2012 RTM. 

Windows Server 2012 R2 to the rescue, I think.  The Beta version came out when I got back from traveling, I downloaded the iso and was able to get past the activation error.  I went through the BIOS and made sure the legacy boot was enabled, secure boot was disabled.  then I was able to install.  There was some other option in the bios about enter keys.  All I know, if this had not of worked, a flavor of linux would have went on there along with virtual box  or some other virtual hypervisor.   MS, I hope you don’t continue to make things harder for a long time follower.  Luckily, IIS 8.5 had some new features I wanted to try out!  I guess this is a bit of a rant, but overall, the machine is online and I can start to use it.

Cheers and happy geeking!

Steve Schofield
Microsoft MVP – IIS