How to change hostname of server using netdom command

Introduction

In this post, I will tell you, how you can change hostname of your windows server with the help of netdom command. This command will work on any windows server.

Actual Lab.

• Login to your server with administrative credentials.
• Open command prompt as Admin.
• To view the hostname, type hostname command.
• To change the hostname, type “netdom renamecomputer %ComputerName% /NewName:yourservername”.
• It will ask you for yes or no, simple press “y”. The message should state “The command completed successfully”.
• After this restart your computer by typing “shutdown /r” command.
• After restart, again open command prompt and type hostname command, you will see your computer name has changed.

I have also made the video of this lab, you can watch it on my YouTube channel. Please subscribe for more videos.

What is Active Directory Recycle Bin and Why and How You Should Enable it?

Introduction

Whenever you delete an object from Active Directory in Windows Server mistakenly or intentionally, there is no way of recovering it back and you lost all the rights you have given to a particular object and you have to recreate it and give the rights again which is a very long process in itself because in a domain environment lot of things are connected to a particular object.

Now in Windows Server 2012, Microsoft has introduced Recycle Bin for Active Directory which creates a Deleted Objects folder whereby you can restore your object if deleted by mistake in no time. Below I am outlining the steps to activate Active Directory Recycle Bin. Enable Active Directory Recycle Bin is a one time process and you cannot disable it. Disable it…. why should you bother to disable it, when it gives you advantage of recovering your deleted objects.

Actual Lab

• Login to your Domain Controller with Administrative Rights.
• On the Dashboard of Server Manager, click on AD DS.

• After the page opens, Right click on Server Name and Choose Active Directory Administrative Center option.

• On the left hand side, click on your domain name. Your AD object window will be visible on the right hand side.

• On the right hand side under your domain controller name, click on Enable Recycle Bin. After clicking it, you will see a warning box, stating that you cannot disable it once it is enabled. Click on OK Button if you want to enable it or click No.

• After Enabling it, you will see a warning box pop up asking you to refresh your Active Directory Administrative Center once. Click on OK and Click on Refresh Button to refresh the Active Directory Administrative Center.
• After refreshing, You will see a Deleted objects folder in the Objects section.

• Now whenever you delete an object, it will go to this folder. To restore an object, just go to this folder and right click the object which you want to restore and it will be restored from where you have deleted that object.

In the below video, I have performed the Restoration process. Please watch it and subscribe to channel.

What is Windows Side-by-Side (WinSxS) folder and How it can save your server’s hard disk space?

Introduction

Whenever you install any role or feature in Windows Server, the installation wizard or PowewrShell cmdlet looks for installation files in a specific location i.e. WinSxS folder located in C:\Windows\WinSxS folder. If you go to this folder and check its properties, you will see it contains the largest space in the entire Windows folder around 6 GB approx in my Windows Server 2012 R2 installation.

And in server’s case, not all the roles and features are installed on servers. Only a small amount of roles are needed like Web Server, Active Directory etc. So this consumes lot of space for the roles and features which we don’t need to even install.

Now in Windows Server 2012, you have the option via PowerShell to remove the files you don;t need. I will tell you how.

Actual Lab

• Open PowerShell.
• Type Get-WindowsFeature, to get the full list of available/installed/removed features.
• Now to uninstall and remove the files from WinSxS folder, simply issue Uninstall-WindowsFeature Feature Name -Remove cmdlet.(E.g to remove Windows Server Migration tools, use the command Uninstall-WindowsFeature Migration -Remove). If you don’t use the -Remove keyword, the installation files will remain in the WinSxS folder and will be used if you install the role at a later time without going to WIndows Update website.
• If you want to install this role/feature at a later time, you can do this, just make sure that your server is connected to the Internet and issue this command Install-WindowsFeature Feature Name cmdlet. The command will first look at WinSxS folder, if the files are not found, then it will fetch the required files from Windows Update website.

This will save you considerable amount of space on your server hard disk.

You can also watch the full video here.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/pEQ6sml4FRKL/

How to Convert Windows Server 2012 Full GUI to Minimal GUI

The basic idea behind this practical is to reduce the memory workload on the server, because the normal server with GUI consumes more memory and processor resources.

Actual Practical

• Log in to your server with administrative credentials.
• Open Server Manager.
• Click on Manage and Choose Remove Roles and Features option. The Remove Roles and Features wizard appears. Click on Next button to proceed.
• On the Select Destination Server, choose the server where you want to make changes and click on next.
• On the Remove Server Roles page, click next.
• On the Remove Features Page, Look for User Interfaces and Infrasturcture.
• Expand it and uncheck Server Graphical Shell and click on Next.
• On the Results Page, click on Remove and restart your server.

After restart, you will only get a command prompt, Powershell and Server Manager which you can compare with Server Core installation. There will be no Graphical Shell, No control panel, No File Explorer.

You can also watch the video of this practical
https://youtu.be/XinJYg3gYKI

 

 

How to change Refresh Interval of Server Manager in Windows Server 2012

To change refresh interval of Server Manager, perform the following steps.

• Login to the server as Admin.
• Open Server Manager.
• Click on Manager and choose Server Manager Properties.
• The Server Manager properties Windows appears.

• Change the time to your convenient time. You can assign 1 to 14400 minutes. Default is 10 minutes and click on OK.

You can see the full video here also.

How to Set or Change Resolution of Command Prompt in Windows Server 2012 Server Core

To Set or change resolution of Server Core 2012, perform the below mentioned steps.

• Login to Windows Server 2012 Server Core as admin.
• In the command prompt windows, type Setres and press enter.
• To view the current resolution, type Setres -i
• To change resolution type Setres -w 1280 -h 1024. It will ask you for the confirmation.
• Type Y to save the current resolution or Type N to cancel the changes.
• To forcefully change resolution, without confirmation just add -f command at the end.

You can watch the full tutorial here on our YouTube channel also. Here is the link for the same.