I was surprised to discover that it's very easy to install the VMware Tools on Windows Server 2008 R2 Core today. Simply select the VM in VMware Infrastructure Web Access (assuming you are using VMware Server 2, if not use the appropriate interface) and click the Install VMware Tools link. The iso won't autorun, but all you have to do is change to the virtual CD–ROM drive within the VM (probably D:) and run:
msiexec /i "VMware Tools64.msi"
VMware Tools Installed
I recently installed Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 with SP2 on Windows Server 2008 R2, with the intention of adding Search Server Express 2008 for enterprise search functionality. However, when I tried to run the Search Server install I was greeted with the following unfriendly message:
Program Compatibility Assistant
After some digging around and Googling, I discovered that Search Server wouldn’t install on Server 2008 R2 without Service Pack 2. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear possible (at this time) to download it with SP2 so what do you do? I did a little experimenting and found out that you can slipstream the The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 2 (SP2) into the install. Note that the download page actually specifies the service pack will update Search Server. Here's how to slipstream it:
SearchServerExpress.exe and run SearchServerExpress.exe /extract:SearchServer. This extracts (but doesn't install) Search Server Express to the folder SearchServer.officeserver2007sp2-kb953334-x64-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract:SearchServer\Updates (you will have downloaded the 64–bit version as Windows Server 2008 R2 is 64–bit only). This extracts the service pack files into the Updates folder of the Search Server install.setup.exe from within the SearchServer folder
You should find that the Search Server install now runs happily without complaining and pauses for a period of time to apply updates towards the end of the process.
Happy searching!
Today I installed Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Core, expecting to be presented with PowerShell. Wrong. I was presented with good old cmd.exe. It took me a while to find this information, so I thought I'd blog it here. To install PowerShell, you need to run the following commands:
DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx2–ServerCore
DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell
Now you can launch powershell.exe from C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0. Although the path would suggest PowerShell 1.0, a quick Get-Host indicates PowerShell 2.0:
Get-Host output
A little more about DISM, for those that are interested. DISM is the "Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool" and can be used to perform various configuration tasks on offline or running images. Hence the /Online switch is used to tell DISM it must target the running operating system. The following command will list all features and their status (suggest you pipe it through more):
DISM /Online /Get-Features | more
Note that PowerShell requires .NET Framework 2.0, hence the first DISM command.
Thanks to Vincent Hu for his post on TechNet, which I finally found. There is a slight mistake, though, as there should be no space between /FeatureName: and the feature you want to install.
