Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016: Microsoft 70-740 MCSA Exam Guide - Sasha Kranjac - E-Book

Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016: Microsoft 70-740 MCSA Exam Guide E-Book

Sasha Kranjac

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Beschreibung

A comprehensive guide for MCSA Exam 70-740, that will help you prepare from day one to earn the valuable Microsoft Certificate




Key Features



  • Leverage practice questions and mock tests to pass this certification with confidence


  • Learn to Install Windows Servers,implement high availability, and monitor server environments


  • Gain necessary skills to implement and configure storage and compute features





Book Description



MCSA: Windows Server 2016 certification is one of the most sought-after certifications for IT professionals, which includes working with Windows Server and performing administrative tasks around it. This book is aimed at the 70-740 certification and is part of Packt's three-book series on MCSA Windows Server 2016 certification, which covers Exam 70-740, Exam 70-741, and Exam 70-742.






This book will cover exam objectives for the 70-740 exam, and starting from installing and configuring Windows Server 2016, Windows Server imaging and deployment to configuring and managing disks and volumes, implementing and configuring server storage and implementing Hyper-V. At the end of each chapter you will be provided test questions to revise your learnings which will boost your confidence in preparing for the actual certifications.






By the end of this book, you will learn everything needed to pass the, MCSA Exam 70-740: Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016, certification.




What you will learn



  • Install Windows Server 2016


  • Upgrade and Migrate servers and workloads


  • Implement and configure server storage


  • Install and configure Hyper-V


  • Configure the virtual machine (VM) settings


  • Configure Hyper-V storage


  • Configure Hyper-V networking



Who this book is for



This book is ideal for system administrators interested in installing and configuring storage and compute features with Windows Sever 2016 and aiming to pass the 70-740 certification. Some experience with Windows Server in an enterprise environment is assumed.

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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

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Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016: Microsoft 70-740 MCSA Exam Guide
Implement and configure storage and compute functionalities in Windows Server 2016

 

 

 

 

 

Sasha KranjacVladimir Stefanovic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI

Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016: Microsoft 70-740 MCSA Exam Guide

Copyright © 2019 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

 

Commissioning Editor: Kartikey PandeyAcquisition Editor: Shrilekha InaniContent Development Editor:Ronn KurienTechnical Editor: Aditya KhadyeCopy Editor:Safis EditingLanguage Support Editor: Mary McGowanProject Coordinator:Jagdish PrabhuProofreader: Safis EditingIndexer:Pratik ShirodkarGraphics:Tom ScariaProduction Coordinator: Jyoti Chauhan

First published: February 2019

Production reference: 1280219

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78961-945-4

www.packtpub.com

 
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Contributors

About the authors

Sasha Kranjac is a security and Azure expert and instructor with more than two decades of experience in the field. He began programming in Assembler on Sir Clive Sinclair's ZX, met Windows NT 3.5, and the love has existed ever since. Sasha owns an IT training and consulting company that helps companies and individuals to embrace the cloud and be safe in cyberspace. He is a Microsoft MVP, MCT, MCT Regional Lead, Certified EC-Council Instructor (CEI), and currently holds more than 60 technical certifications. Sasha is a frequent speaker at various international conferences, and is a consultant and trainer for some of the largest Fortune 500 companies.

Vladimir Stefanovic is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and system engineer with more than 10 years of experience in the IT industry. Over his IT career, Vladimir has worked in all areas of IT administration, from IT technician to his current system engineer position. As a lead system engineer at Serbian IT company SuperAdmins and lead technician trainer at Admin Training Center, he successfully delivered numerous projects and courses. He is also an active conference speaker, having spoken at a long list of conferences, such as MCT Summits (in the USA, Germany, and Greece), ATD, WinDays, KulenDayz, and Sinergija (Regional Conferences). He is the leader of a few user groups and is an active community member, with the mission to share knowledge as much as possible.

About the reviewer

Mustafa Toroman is a program architect and senior system engineer with Authority Partners. With years of experience of designing and monitoring infrastructure solutions, lately he focuses on designing new solutions in the cloud and migrating existing solutions to the cloud. He is very interested in DevOps processes, and he's also an Infrastructure-as-Code enthusiast. Mustafa has over 30 Microsoft certificates and has been an MCT for the last 6 years. He often speaks at international conferences about cloud technologies, and he has been awarded MVP for Microsoft Azure for the last three years in a row. Mustafa also authored Hands-On Cloud Administration in Azure and co-authored Learn Node.js with Azure, both published by Packt.

 

 

 

 

 

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright and Credits

Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016: Microsoft 70-740 MCSA Exam Guide

About Packt

Why subscribe?

Packt.com

Contributors

About the authors

About the reviewer

Packt is searching for authors like you

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Conventions used

Get in touch

Reviews

Installing Windows Server 2016

Technical requirements

Installing Windows Server 2016

Minimum system hardware requirements

Optional requirements

Windows Server 2016 editions

Installing Windows Server 2016

Installing Windows Server 2016 roles and features

Installing roles and features using the Server Manager

Installing roles and features using Windows PowerShell

Installing and configuring Windows Server Core

Managing Windows Server installations

Installing and configuring Nano Server

Deploying Nano Server

Upgrading and migrating servers and workloads

License conversion

Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA)

Key Management Services (KMS) activation

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Windows Server Imaging and Deployment

Technical requirements

Assessment and planning

Planning for Windows Server virtualization

Assessing virtualization workloads

Working with images

Preparing a machine for disk imaging

Using the System Preparation Tool or Sysprep

Using the Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool

Mounting images

Updating images

Adding roles and features

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Configuring and Implementing Storage

Technical requirements

Configuring and managing disks and volumes

NT Filesystem (NTFS)

Security

Support for large volumes

Reliability

Clustered storage

Capacity enhancements

Dynamic disks and volumes

Resilient Filesystem (ReFS)

Scalability

Resiliency

Performance

Configuring sector sizes

Configuring GUID Partition Tables (GPT disks)

MBR disks

GPT disks

Initializing disks

Creating VHD and VHDX files using Disk Management or Windows PowerShell

Creating VHD and VHDX files using Disk Management

Creating VHD and VHDX files using Windows PowerShell

Mounting virtual hard disks

Mounting virtual hard disks using PowerShell

Configuring NFS and SMB shared folders

Configuring shares using the Server Manager

Creating SMB shared folders

Creating NFS shared folders

Configuring sharing using PowerShell

Configuring file and folder permissions

Modifying Advanced Security Settings

Implementing and configuring server storage

Configuring storage pools

Configuring the Internet Small Computer Systems Interface

Implementing data deduplication

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Getting to Know Hyper-V

Technical requirements

Installing and configuring Hyper-V

Determining the hardware and compatibility requirements for installing Hyper-V

Shielded virtual machines

Discrete device assignment

Supported Windows guest operating systems for Hyper-V

Supported non-Windows client operating systems

Installing Hyper-V

Installing management tools

Performing remote management of Hyper-V hosts

Using Windows PowerShell Direct

Implementing nested virtualization

Configuring virtual machine settings

Creating a VM

Configuring the VM memory

Configuring Non-Uniform Memory Access support

Configuring resource metering

Managing Integration Services

Implementing Enhanced Session Mode

Exporting and importing VMs

Configuring Hyper-V storage

Creating VHD and VHDX files using Hyper-V Manager

Editing virtual hard disks

Configuring Hyper-V networking

Configuring Hyper-V virtual switches

Adding and removing virtual network interface cards (vNICs)

Configuring advanced virtual network adapter features

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Understanding Windows Containers

An introduction to containers

Understanding the concept of containers

Containers in Windows

Windows Server Containers

Hyper-V containers

Deploying Windows Containers

Installing and configuring a Windows Server Container host

Preparing the virtual machine to be a container host for Windows Containers

Preparing the virtual machine to be a container host for Hyper-V containers

Installing the package provider

Installing Docker on Windows

 Installing container images

Creating Hyper-V and Windows Server Containers

Managing Windows Containers

Container networking

Managing Windows Containers

Managing container images using Docker Hub and Dockerfile

Summary

Questions

Further reading

High Availability

Disaster recovery and high availability in Hyper-V

Implementing Hyper-V Replica

Live migration

Configuring authentication for migration

Storage migration

Implementing Storage Spaces Direct

Requirements for Storage Spaces Direct

Enabling Storage Spaces Direct

Installing all necessary roles

Validating and creating the cluster

Enabling Storage Spaces Direct

Creating volumes

Implementing Network Load Balancing

An introduction to NLB

Prerequisites for NLB

Installing NLB nodes and creating an NLB cluster

Configuring NLB clustering and nodes

Port rules

Affinity settings

Network settings

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Implementing Clustering

Planning and implementing failover clustering

Planning a failover cluster

Failover clustering requirements

Storage requirements

Hardware requirements

Network requirements

Software requirements

Implementing a failover cluster

Validating the cluster configuration

Creating the cluster

Cluster quorum

Managing a failover cluster

Configuring storage

Configuring clustered roles

Configuring the network

Configuring failover and preference settings

Cluster-aware updating

Backing up and restoring a cluster

Hyper-V failover clusters

Hyper-V cluster components and requirements

Implementing Hyper-V failover clusters

Configuring a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV)

Configuring virtual machines in a Hyper-V failover cluster

Configuring health protection

Configuring VM monitoring

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Monitoring and Maintaining Server Environments

Implementing Windows Server Update Services

Designing and installing WSUS

Configuring WSUS

Configuring the WSUS server

Configuring computers

Managing patch management

Configuring computer groups

Approving updates

Configuring Windows Server Backup

Implementing Windows Server Backup

Backing up and restoring data

Backing up files and folders

Restoring files and folders

Backing up system images

Restoring a system image

Using the Window Server Backup console

Using installation media

Backup strategy

Monitoring Windows Server

Performance Monitor

Event Viewer

Server Manager

Configuring alerts

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Assessments

Chapter 1: Installing Windows Server 2016

Chapter 2: Windows Server Imaging and Deployment

Chapter 3: Configuring and Implementing Storage

Chapter 4: Getting to Know Hyper-V

Chapter 5: Understanding Windows Containers

Chapter 6: High Availability

Chapter 7: Implementing Clustering

Chapter 8: Monitoring and Maintaining Server Environments

Preface

Welcome to Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016: Microsoft 70-740 MCSA Exam Guide!

This book is designed to give you a thorough understanding of fundamental installation skills and vital services in Windows Server 2016 to prepare you for Exam 70-740: Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016, which is part of the MCSA Windows Server 2016 Certification and MCSE Core Infrastructure Certification. The book will start with the installation of Windows Server 2016. Appropriate requirements and usage scenarios will be covered, followed by Windows Server Imaging and Deployment, where updates and image management will be covered. Next, configuration, implementation, and storage management will be described, after which virtualization with Hyper-V and virtualization building blocks in Windows Server 2016 will be explained. Afterward, Windows Containers will be introduced, and, subsequently, how to support business-critical workloads with high availability will be covered. Finally, implementing highly-available solutions with clustering will be explained, along with an outline of monitoring and maintaining server environments.

Who this book is for

This book is aimed at anyone who wants to learn about the installation, storage, and compute functionalities available in Windows Server 2016, and earn valuable Microsoft certifications. To better understand the content of this book, you should have a working knowledge of Windows Server operating systems, and preferably, experience of working with them.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Installing Windows Server 2016, helps you to understand which version of Windows Server to install, and what types of hardware are essential for building a solid and reliable infrastructure.

Chapter 2, Windows Server Imaging and Deployment, addresses the assessment of existing environments, planning for workload deployments, and Windows Server image management and maintenance.

Chapter 3, Configuring and Implementing Storage, explains configuration and storage management, and introduces more advanced topics, such as Storage Replica and deduplication.

Chapter 4, Getting to Know Hyper-V, helps you to determine the hardware and software requirements for Hyper-V, before looking at how to install, configure, and manage it. We will configure the virtual machine (VM) memory and integration services, determine the appropriate usage scenarios of Generation 1 and Generation 2 VMs, install Linux-based VMs, and move and convert VMs.

Chapter 5, Understanding Windows Containers, describes containers in Windows Server 2016, the installation of container support in Windows, how to deploy Windows Containers, and how to manage them.

Chapter 6, High Availability, explains high availability and disaster recovery options in Hyper-V. Additionally this chapter will covers the implementation of Storage Spaces Direct and Network Load Balancing, which are both equally important technologies, along with other features for achieving highly available Windows Server infrastructure.

Chapter 7,  Implementing Clustering, explains how to implement and configure failover clustering, configure failover settings and VM monitoring, perform workload migrations, and monitor clustered environments.

Chapter 8, Monitoring and Maintaining Server Environments, covers how to implement Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and use it to manage system updates. You will also learn how to install and configure Windows Server Backup, how to protect services with this feature, and how to monitor Windows Server 2016 using built-in tools.

To get the most out of this book

Before you start with this book with a view to preparing for Exam 70-740, you should have an understanding of networking in Windows Server 2016, imaging concepts, storage technology, virtualization, and related services. Experience of configuring Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2016, as well as working with virtualization, is required to better understand storage and virtualization-related services. The following Windows Server roles and services will be used in this book:

File and storage services

Hyper-V

 

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "By default, the location of the AD DS database is C:\Windows\NTDS\ntds.dit."

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Install-WindowsFeature AD-Domain-Services -IncludeAllSubFeature -

IncludeManagementTools

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Select Operation Masters."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.
Tips and tricks appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, mention the book title in the subject of your message and email us at [email protected].

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packt.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.

Reviews

Please leave a review. Once you have read and used this book, why not leave a review on the site that you purchased it from? Potential readers can then see and use your unbiased opinion to make purchase decisions, we at Packt can understand what you think about our products, and our authors can see your feedback on their book. Thank you!

For more information about Packt, please visit packt.com.

Installing Windows Server 2016

In this first chapter, we will cover the installation ofWindows Server and Nano Server, and migration to Windows Server 2016 from previous versions. We will start by determining the important installation requirements of Windows Server 2016, including which versions and Windows Server editions to install and what hardware is essential for a solid and reliable infrastructure. One important part is installing and configuring a special version of Windows Server without a GUI, Windows Server Core. We will see how to configure the installation of Windows Server 2016 using various options and tools.

Essential to Windows Server administration is the ability to perform server management remotely and use automation tools to reduce management errors and save time. We will then move on to the installation and configuration of Nano Server and the tools we need to build Nano Server images and configure Nano Server workloads. Finally, we will learn how to perform upgrades from previous versions and how to activate Window Server installations.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

Installing Windows Server 2016

Installing and configuring Nano Server

Upgrading and migrating servers and workloads

Technical requirements

You will need a version of Windows Server 2016. This can be a retail version, a volume-licensed version, or an evaluation version with which you can experiment. I suggest you set up your own lab, preferably in a sandboxed environment. You can set up your lab either in Hyper-V or in Microsoft Azure. Additionally, Hyper-V is available on Windows 10, or you can use any other virtualization platform to build your own lab: VMware, Amazon Web Services, VirtualBox, and so on. Be aware that Microsoft Azure does not support some Windows Server roles and features, including the following:

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

(

DHCP

)

Server

Hyper-V (at the time of writing, Hyper-V's role in Azure is supported in all v3 virtual machines, such as Ev3 and Dv3 virtual machines)

Rights Management Services

Windows Deployment Services

In upgrade scenarios, you will need Windows Server 2012 or an older version. Trial operating system versions are available at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/.

Sometimes, when you click on Windows Server 2016 under the Products menu, only a list of Windows Server 2012 products is displayed. This might be a temporary glitch. To display the Windows Server 2016 version, click on the plus sign next to any Windows Server 2012 version and expand the entry. After an automatic refresh, the list will show the Windows Server 2016 versions that are available for evaluation and download. There are three options available: Azure, ISO, and Virtual Lab. Choose whichever suits you best.

Installing Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2016 is available in many different variants, but before choosing the appropriate version for your specific workloads and needs, you must be sure that your current or future hardware will be able to support it.

The following system requirements are minimum hardware requirements that are common to all Windows Server 2016 installation options and editions. The actual minimum hardware requirements are estimated and may vary depending on the planned roles and features. Obviously, for production environments and optimum server performance, you should plan to install Windows Server 2016 on hardware that exceeds these requirements.

Minimum system hardware requirements

Your system should have at least the following specifications:

Processor

:

4 GHz 64-bit processor.

Support for

Second Level Address Translation

(

SLAT

) or nested paging. SLAT is a processor technology that is used in virtual-to-physical memory address translation. Both AMD and Intel support SLAT. AMD's implementation is called

Rapid Virtualization Indexing

(

RVI

) and Intel's implementation is called

Extended Page Tables

(

EPT

).

Support for

Data Execution Prevention

(

DEP

) and

No-Execute

(

NX

). DEP/NX is a processor feature that allows you to mark memory pages as either executable or non-executable. It also allows a processor to help prevent the execution of malicious data being placed into your memory. Note that a 32-bit processor is not supported.

RAM

: 512 MB, although the desirable minimum memory for a server with a GUI is 2 GB.

Disk/Storage

: 32 GB of disk space and a PCI Express storage adapter. Older architectures (such as PATA, ATA, IDE, or EIDE) are not supported.

Network

: PCI Express-compliant Gigabit Ethernet adapter that supports

Pre-boot Execution Environment

(

PXE

).

Optional requirements

The following are optional requirements for Windows Server installation; they are convenient to have but not are required:

Optical d

rive

: DVD drive, if you are installing Windows Server 2016 from a disk

Video

: SVGA 1024x768 video resolution

Input devices

: Keyboard and mouse

Internet:

 Recommended

Other

: UEFI firmware and a

Trusted Platform Module

(

TPM

) chip

The optional requirements are exactly that, options, and are not necessarily needed to install Windows Server 2016 because the server administration should be performed almost exclusively remotely. Specific features may require additional hardware, such as BitLocker Drive Encryption, which requires a TPM chip. If you plan to use BitLocker, then hardware-based TPM chip must adhere to version 2.0 of the TPM specification. Additionally, it needs to support the SHA-256 encryption and the EK certificate.

Both Windows Server 2016 editions support a maximum of 24 TB of RAM, 12 TB of RAM per generation 2 VM (1 TB of RAM per generation 1 VM), 64 of 64-bit sockets, 512 physical (host) logical processors, and 240 virtual processors per VM. 

Windows Server 2016 editions

Windows Server 2016 is available in two main editions and a few minor standalone editions. The two main editions are as follows:

Datacenter Edition

: This edition has the complete set of features and roles and is most appropriate for environments in need of unlimited virtualization or highly-virtualized, enterprise-scale workloads.

Standard Edition

: This edition is mostly appropriate for physical installations or non-virtualized, low-density environments. It supports Hyper-V as well but the number of virtualized workloads is limited compared to the Datacenter Edition.

The features that are exclusive to the Datacenter Edition include shielded virtual machines, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), networking stacks, Storage Spaces Direct, and Storage Replica. The Standard Edition includes rights to two Operating System Environments (OSEs, or virtual machines) or Hyper-V Containers, whereas the Datacenter Edition includes unlimited OSEs and Hyper-V Containers. OSE is a Microsoft term that represents a Windows instance running either as a physical or a virtual installation. The Standard Edition therefore grants you the right to run a physical server OSE instance in addition to a virtual instance.

If a physical OSE is used exclusively to host and manage virtual OSEs, you can use two virtual OSEs in addition to the physical OSE. At first, the Standard Edition OSE limit might not look very attractive, but the price is an important factor to consider as well; currently, Datacenter Edition price is approximately six to seven times higher than Standard Edition. Unless you will run more than twelve to fourteen virtual machines, having a single Datacenter license might not be a good decision because you could spend less money buying Standard Edition licenses instead. Of course, licensing and money are not the only variables here. Should you decide to buy Standard licenses, you have to consider expense of buying the same amount of additional server hardware.

If you choose the Datacenter version, a high-end server with hardware characteristics powerful enough to run fourteen virtual machines might be more expensive than buying seven low- or mid-end servers suitable to host Standard versions of Windows Server. With in increased number of servers, the administrative burden increases as well.

The Datacenter and Standard Editions require every user or device that accesses a server to have a Client Access License (CAL). The following table gives you a comparison of the features of Windows Server 2016 editions:

Feature

Datacenter

Standard

Windows Server Core functionality

Yes

Yes

OSEs/Hyper-V Containers

Unlimited

Two (supports two OSEs or instances)

Windows Server Containers

Unlimited

Unlimited

Host Guardian Hyper-V Service

Yes

Yes

Nano Server

Yes

Yes

Storage features, including Storage Spaces Direct and Storage Replica

Yes

No

Shielded virtual machines

Yes

No

Networking stack

Yes

No

Software-Defined Networking

Yes

No

Table 1: Feature comparison between different editions of Windows Server 2016

Minor or standalone Windows Server 2016 Editions include the following:

Essentials

: I

deal for small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices. No CALs are required. Be aware that the Essentials edition does not support more users and devices once it's at its user or device limit. 

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016

: A 

free edition that contains only Windows Hypervisor, the same technology as is in the Hyper-V role on Windows Server 2016. Like Server Core, it has no graphical interface.

Windows Storage Server 2016

: A

 dedicated file and print server in both Standard and Workgroup editions. This is available only with a purchase of dedicated hardware as part of an

Original Equipment Manufacturer

(

OEM

) offering.

Windows Server 2016 Multipoint Premium Server

:

 

A

vailable only through Volume Licensing for academic customers.

Although not listed as an exam objective at the time of writing, knowing a little bit about Windows Server 2016 licensing can be helpful in determining which Windows Server edition to use.

Installing Windows Server 2016

There are several different ways of installing Windows Server 2016, each of which are suitable for different scenarios. In this section, we will explain a clean installation, while upgrades and migrations will be described later.

The term clean installation describes how to install Windows Server 2016 either on new hardware or a virtual machine, or on old hardware or a virtual machine without retaining the old operating system.

Whether you install Windows Server 2016 on a physical server or as a virtual machine, the process is the same. The only difference is in how you supply the installation files. To install an operating system on a virtual machine in Hyper-V, you would provide a Windows Server 2016 ISO file. This can be used to burn a DVD or to make a bootable USB drive.

To burn a DVD or to make a bootable USB drive, consider using the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool, a lightweight, minimalistic, and simple-to-use imaging tool. Although the name suggests its main purpose is to make Windows 7 images and bootable drives, you can safely use it to make bootable USB and DVD media for all Windows Server and Windows Client operating systems, from Windows 7 to the most recent versions. The Windows USB/DVD Download Tool web page has necessary information about the tool, installation instructions, software prerequisites and a download link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool.

To go directly to the download page, where you can download multiple language versions of the tool, visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56485.

If you have optical media available, you can use a DVD drive as an installation source either on a virtual machine or on bare metal:

After starting the Windows Server 2016 setup process, you are presented with pull-down menus that you can use to choose which language, time zone, currency format, and keyboard layout to use. You can change all these options after setup process is finished. However, depending on the installation file used, you might not be able to choose a different language.

Click

Next

and a simplistic setup window will appear. The 

Repair Your Computer

option brings up recovery options, in which the

System Image Recovery

and

Command Prompt

options are available.

After you click

Install now

, Windows Setup will ask you to enter a product key and activate an installation. The product key you enter will determine which Windows Server version is used in the setup process.

If you do not have your product key, choose

I don't have a product key

and the operating system selection window will appear, as can be seen in the following screenshot:

There are four choices available. There are two Windows Server 2016 versions, Datacenter and Standard, each of which is presented in two different configurations: with a GUI (Desktop Experience) or without it (Server Core). Unless you have a specific reason to install GUI elements, you should always choose to install the Server Core version.

In earlier Windows Server releases (in Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 for example), you could choose either Desktop Experience or Server Core version and remove or install a GUI easily after installation. Windows Server 2016 releases do not support installing or uninstalling a GUI anymore. If you change your mind about which version you want to choose, you should do a clean installation:

On the next screen, after you accept the license terms, Windows Setup will ask you which type of installation you require: upgrade or custom. For now, we will choose

custom install

, as we will explain the upgrade option later in this chapter. You should choose custom install in the following situations:

You are performing a clean install, where an operating system is not present

An operating system is installed and you want to retain it, so that you can use multi-booting

You are unable to upgrade from an existing operating system

You want to delete all existing data and operating systems and perform a clean install

The custom installation option also allows you to make changes to drives, partitions, and load drivers:

Refresh

will rescan hardware after you have provided a new driver

Delete

enables you to delete existing partitions or ones that you created during the setup process

Format

performs formatting of partition using NTFS file system, erasing all data

New

creates a new partition, and 

Extend

allows you to make partitions larger, if disk space adjacent to partition is unoccupied

If you have bought a new disk, it is not necessary to use these commands and prepare a disk. Windows Setup will do this for you. If you need to prepare the disk in a specific way, the 

diskpart.exe

 command

 executed in Command Prompt, will enable you to do so.

Load driver

lets you load device drivers if Windows Setup doesn't recognize the installation disk and you need to enable the storage controller to choose the installation destination. The following screenshot shows

Windows Setup

options that appear if only one installation drive is available. You can also see the commands mentioned earlier that will help you manage the storage:

To open Command Prompt during setup, press

Shift

+

F10

. Here, you can use

diskpart.exe

to make advanced changes to disks and partitions, or use other commands that may help you to install and troubleshoot Windows Setup.

In the next step, the Windows installation begins. Once Windows Setup copies the necessary files, system restarts.

On the

Customize settings

screen,

Windows Setup

prompts you for the built-in administrator password. Enter this to sign in and the installation is complete.

Installing Windows Server 2016 roles and features

To enable Windows Server 2016 to perform a specific duty or to enhance it to support a particular task, you need to install server roles and features:

Server roles is a collection of services that are usually installed together to enable the Windows Server to perform a certain function. Examples of server roles include DNS Server, DHCP Server, or Active Directory Domain Services. A Windows Server computer can perform one or more roles at the same time, depending on the installation environment and the number of users it supports. Smaller companies or organizations often have servers that perform many functions or roles, while larger companies or enterprises might have multiple servers configured with one dedicated role only. These dedicated servers are likely to be used more heavily, serving a larger number of users, devices, or requests.