Server 2012 R2 Essentials

[ttam]

Ok so I'm lost. Have a client that I put server 2012 on their new server. Their medical software needs things like Domain services, domain certificates off but google doesn't help and the spot I run into to disable them wont let me.

 

Anyone got some pointers and a few mins? I've never worked with AD/Domain services in Win Server before

[Blake]

Have you installed the ADDS service? or promoted the server?

 

Open Server manager -> add roles and features -> click next till you get a list of items, tick ADDS it will prompt for required pre-requisites agree to them, then next till the service is installed.

 

Once this is done, if you look at the ADDS service tab in server manager there will be a little warning box saying "promote this server" you then need to configure the domain/forest.

 

EDIT: Never actually deployed an essentials 2012 box, it appears to be completely different, look here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/library/dn281793.aspx

 

Also CBTNuggets, go get work to spring for a subscription, ~USD$70 a month, will show you everything in 70-410,411,412 exam which is all about windows server (not specific to Essentials, but will show you how to get your head around the windows server environment)

 

EDIT2: you should be paying someone to deploy this that has done it before, you don't want to mess up settings that can become a real issue later on if not configured correctly at D-day.

[NumLock21]

If I'm reading that correctly, you want turn off Domain Services? According to Microsoft, Server 2012 R2 Essentials requires Domain Services. Might have to upgrade to 2012 R2 Standard, but then you'll have to go through this whole licensing stuff.

http://intelligentsystem.com/user-cals-vs-device-cals/

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/CalTool/

 

 

This might help?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41703

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/aa40963c-7235-40f7-85f5-8f8d030a7c13/how-to-skip-domain-joining-during-client-deployment-in-a-windows-server-2012-essentials-network?forum=winserveressentials

https://tinkertry.com/ws2012e-domain-removal

[ttam]

Have you installed the ADDS service? or promoted the server?

 

Open Server manager -> add roles and features -> click next till you get a list of items, tick ADDS it will prompt for required pre-requisites agree to them, then next till the service is installed.

 

Once this is done, if you look at the ADDS service tab in server manager there will be a little warning box saying "promote this server" you then need to configure the domain/forest.

 

EDIT: Never actually deployed an essentials 2012 box, it appears to be completely different, look here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/library/dn281793.aspx

 

Also CBTNuggets, go get work to spring for a subscription, ~USD$70 a month, will show you everything in 70-410,411,412 exam which is all about windows server (not specific to Essentials, but will show you how to get your head around the windows server environment)

 

EDIT2: you should be paying someone to deploy this that has done it before, you don't want to mess up settings that can become a real issue later on if not configured correctly at D-day.

It wasn't that hard to remove AD server certificates, domain services, web services and the dns services after I figured out that removing them from server manager, you had to actually go into the sub trees and remove them in a certain order instead of just removing them at the root.

 

Pay someone? Psh lol. I may not be a server administrator but give me a few hours and I can get up to par with them no problem except when I was under a time crunch like this one

[ttam]

If I'm reading that correctly, you want turn off Domain Services? According to Microsoft, Server 2012 R2 Essentials requires Domain Services. Might have to upgrade to 2012 R2 Standard, but then you'll have to go through this whole licensing stuff.

http://intelligentsystem.com/user-cals-vs-device-cals/

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/CalTool/

 

 

This might help?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41703

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/aa40963c-7235-40f7-85f5-8f8d030a7c13/how-to-skip-domain-joining-during-client-deployment-in-a-windows-server-2012-essentials-network?forum=winserveressentials

https://tinkertry.com/ws2012e-domain-removal

By turning off domain services it will allow the server to work on the homegroup instead. Makes it easier for the doctors office's front computers to communicate with the software on the server.

[dalekphalm]

By turning off domain services it will allow the server to work on the homegroup instead. Makes it easier for the doctors office's front computers to communicate with the software on the server.

Frankly, from the sounds of it, they don't need a proper server OS at all.

 

Getting Server 2012 and disabling all that stuff basically turns it into a Windows 8.1 box.

 

Either their setup is wrong (communicating via Homegroup vs a Domain? Domains are generally far superior for this kind of thing - but this case could be different), or you never needed a Server OS.

[NumLock21]

By turning off domain services it will allow the server to work on the homegroup instead. Makes it easier for the doctors office's front computers to communicate with the software on the server.

So no errors after disabling domain services, even though MS said 2012 essentials requires domain services. Connecting to HomeGroup? Looks like you could just grab Win 8.1 Pro as it supports homegroup as well as domain.

[ttam]

Frankly, from the sounds of it, they don't need a proper server OS at all.

 

Getting Server 2012 and disabling all that stuff basically turns it into a Windows 8.1 box.

 

Either their setup is wrong (communicating via Homegroup vs a Domain? Domains are generally far superior for this kind of thing - but this case could be different), or you never needed a Server OS.

So no errors after disabling domain services, even though MS said 2012 essentials requires domain services. Connecting to HomeGroup? Looks like you could just grab Win 8.1 Pro as it supports homegroup as well as domain.

It's what the software needed. Tried it on a flat Windows 7 install and no dice. I would rather it be a simple data server but the software is a pain in the ass. I like how Server 2012 has the new updated feel to edit things but it was a bitch compared to server 2003/2008

 

Even worse is it's a 14 core X99 Xeon E5-2695 v3 server with 64GB of ram for 2 doctors and 2 front office to use. This was by the doctors request tho, to go balls to the wall server.

 

They had me disable pretty much all of it lol

[NumLock21]

Even worse is it's a 14 core X99 Xeon E5-2695 v3 server with 64GB of ram for 2 doctors and 2 front office to use. This was by the doctors request tho, to go balls to the wall server.

 

What kind of software for a doctor office requires a server OS, who designed that stupid software? Man talk about overkill, but they still failed at it. They should have just run on dual socket then or go even more overkill by grabbing Xeon E7s. lol

[ttam]

What kind of software for a doctor office requires a server OS, who designed that stupid software? Man talk about overkill, but they still failed at it. They should have just run on dual socket then or go even more overkill by grabbing Xeon E7s. lol

That's the shitty thing with a lot of these medical software companies. They wanted to charge $10,000 for a new server to him and it was a quad core system, 2 1tb drives and 16gb of ram.

[dalekphalm]

That's the shitty thing with a lot of these medical software companies. They wanted to charge $10,000 for a new server to him and it was a quad core system, 2 1tb drives and 16gb of ram.

That $10,000 likely included Software and Vendor Support under a contract with a certain time frame (usually x number of years), which is where the real $$$ comes from.

 

Sooner or later, you'll learn that for IT, some things just cannot be done in-house, unless you're a mega corp that can afford to have that many different specialized IT persons.

 

Were you able to get all of the required services disabled?

[ttam]

That $10,000 likely included Software and Vendor Support under a contract with a certain time frame (usually x number of years), which is where the real $$$ comes from.

 

Sooner or later, you'll learn that for IT, some things just cannot be done in-house, unless you're a mega corp that can afford to have that many different specialized IT persons.

 

Were you able to get all of the required services disabled?

$10k was just the server since they already own the software and tech support is free.

 

That's why my company goes strong because we are the ones that maintain companies computers but we strongly prefer them to not do anything with active directory unless they actually need what it can provide... Data servers really don't need it.

 

Yeah, I had to disable items in certain order from the sub-trees. Each guide/reference I was able to find showed them just clicking the main tree, demoting and good to go so I expected it to be that easy. But having to do certain things in scenarios they didn't have was frustrating

[dalekphalm]

$10k was just the server since they already own the software and tech support is free.

 

That's why my company goes strong because we are the ones that maintain companies computers but we strongly prefer them to not do anything with active directory unless they actually need what it can provide... Data servers really don't need it.

 

Yeah, I had to disable items in certain order from the sub-trees. Each guide/reference I was able to find showed them just clicking the main tree, demoting and good to go so I expected it to be that easy. But having to do certain things in scenarios they didn't have was frustrating

Were you able to proceed and get the "Server" working with the software?

 

Also, Tech Support might be "free", but are they willing to spend hours on the phone with you? Will they do remote sessions (Via Teamviewer or other RDP)? Will they send a tech to your door if needed? How soon will they get back to you about an issue?

 

There are varying levels of tech support. Free generally includes very little of what I've described, unless it's already padded into the price of the product.

 

Active Directory is fantastic, but only when used correctly. If the server is only running this medical software and nothing else (No shared directories, file servers, no multiple user accounts, etc), then sure you likely don't need AD.

[ttam]

Were you able to proceed and get the "Server" working with the software?

 

Also, Tech Support might be "free", but are they willing to spend hours on the phone with you? Will they do remote sessions (Via Teamviewer or other RDP)? Will they send a tech to your door if needed? How soon will they get back to you about an issue?

 

There are varying levels of tech support. Free generally includes very little of what I've described, unless it's already padded into the price of the product.

 

Active Directory is fantastic, but only when used correctly. If the server is only running this medical software and nothing else (No shared directories, file servers, no multiple user accounts, etc), then sure you likely don't need AD.

Yeah everything is up and running on it no problem.

 

It's a software that a lot of doctor offices use and they remote in and fix problems normally within minutes of a ticket/call.

 

I find for certain things and with a lot of users, AD is handy but for companies with no in-house IT, it's a pain. 8 years of owning/working for pc repair shops, it's always been my least favorite thing