Brendon Davis » ServerCore

Change Server Core Page File

brendon — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:56:03 +0000

Fragmented page files have been known to drastically effect system performance and when you have servers hosting connections for hundreds of users this is not a good thing. When building servers for numerous customers it has been common practice to hard set a page file to 1.5x RAM size (To a maximum of 4GB).

Seeing how System Properties is missing from Windows Server Core, changing the size and allocation of the page file has become a little more involved.

Be warned, the following instructions involve the use of the windows registry editor. Incorrect use can screw up your system. You make this configuration at your own risk…..

Open regedit.exe
Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Manager\
Edit the REG_MULTI_SZ entry named ‘PagingFiles’
Enter the drive letter, file name and required pagefile size, one line per file.
eg. C:\pagefile.sys 512
Cross your fingers, reboot the server (shutdown /t 0 /r) and after logging on Task Manager should show the updated page file size.

Hope this helps…

Change Server Core Screen Resolution

brendon — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:58:53 +0000

This may seem like a trivial and un-important task but if the server installs with a screen resolution of 800×600 and the screen’s optimum resolution is 1024×768 or 1280×1024 how do you change it?

You can’t just open up ‘Control Panel -> Desktop’ or run ‘control desk.cpl‘ as they don’t work. Read on for the instructions.

Be warned, the following involves the use of the windows registry editor. Incorrect use can screw up your system. You make this configuration at your own risk…..

Open regedit.exe
Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\\0000\
Note: Replace the with the appropriate string for your video card.
If there is more than one GUID listed, Look for a REG_SZ key named ‘Device Description’ as this may give you a clue on which entry to change.
Create or edit the following REG_DWORD entries
DefaultSettings.YResolution with the decimal data for the screen width. Eg, 768
DefaultSettings.XResolution with the decimal data for the screen height. Eg, 1024
Cross your fingers, log off and on again. Your screen resolution should have changed.

If your screen goes funny when you log on, chances are the settings you put in are not supported by the monitor. You will need to connect to your server registry remotely and change it again…

Useful Windows Server Core Commands

brendon — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:26:55 +0000

Well there are so many different commands needed to manage server core that remembering them all will certainly take a while. In the mean time I will keep this post updated with all the useful commands I have come across for configuring a server.

If you have any other suggestions please post them as a comment.

control timedate.cpl – Sets the date and time.
control intl.cpl – Set the regional settings.
netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces – Shows the listing of local interfaces. Can use this to find the interface ID for the connected NIC.
netsh interface ipv4 set address name’”” source=static address= mask= gateway= – Sets the IPv4 address details.
netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name=”” address’ index=1 – Sets the default DNS server.
netdom renamecomputer %COMPUTERNAME% /NewName: – Changes the local computername to .
ping – Will ping to see if the DC is avalible and working. :-)
netdom join %COMPUTERNAME% /domain: /userd:Administrator /passwordd:* – Joins the computer do domain .
C:\Windows\system32>cscript slmgr.vbs -ato – Activates the Windows Installation.
C:\Windows\system32>cscript scregedit.wsf /AR 0 – Enables RDP Access.
regedit.exe – Settings - Instructions to change the screen resolution.
regedit.exe – Settings – Instructions to change the page file drive & size.

Windows Server Core

brendon — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:35:11 +0000

Well money where my mouth is;

I have always been a big fan of Novel NetWare’s design. Run your server as nothing more than a device that serves clients, use a client device to administer the server. Reducing the load and preventing admins from doing nasty things to server Operating Systems.

With the RTM of Windows 2008 server last Tuesday (for us in Australia) I took it upon myself to download and start familiarising myself with the OS over the weekend. While it still looks and feels like windows, there are some big differences in the administration side of things. Particularly on the ‘Windows Server Core’ installation.

Never before had I thought ‘I wonder how to change the screen resolution with a command prompt.’ Suffusive to say I will be doing a lot of research on command lines for server configurations.

For those that don’t know, NetSH will let you configure the IP address of the server and NetDom will join it to a domain.