1. Minimum System Requirements
There are no special requirements for installing the second server that make
it different from installing any other version of Windows Server 2008
R2. Your minimum requirements and steps remain the same. The official
minimum requirements are shown in Table 1, along with our
commentary on those requirements and suggested real-world
minimums.
Table 1. Table Minimum system requirements for second server
| HARDWARE | REQUIREMENTS | COMMENTS |
|---|
| Processor | 1.4 GHz, single core | 2 GHz or greater is more realistic, and at least
two cores. |
| RAM | 512 Mb | 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM is a more realistic
minimum; 2 GB is recommended. For Server Core, 1 GB of RAM is
normally sufficient for typical infrastructure
workloads. |
| Disk | 32 GB | No less than 60 GB of hard disk space on the
system drive, please. And if your server has more than 16 GB
of RAM, increase the minimum to at least 50 GB. |
| Optical Drive | DVD-ROM | If no optical drive is available, a bootable USB
flash drive can be used for installation.
|
| Video | 800 x 600 | 1024 x 768 is a more realistic minimum. Some
screens will be difficult to use at a resolution below 1024 x
768. |
| Other | Keyboard and mouse | |
| Network | Not required | Who are they kidding? A supported network card is
required for joining a domain or almost anything you’ll want
to do with Windows Server 2008 R2. |
|
As you’ve seen for installing the main SBS server, signed
64-bit drivers are required for Windows Server 2008 R2. This
requirement means that you must do your homework and make sure that
your vendors provide full support for their hardware in Windows
Server 2008 R2. Although the initial response from even major
vendors to the need for signed 64-bit drivers was slower than we’d
have hoped, there is no issue with current server hardware and
64-bit. If you need to use legacy hardware cards or peripherals that
aren’t part of the server you ordered from your server vendor, be
sure to verify the availability of a supported, signed driver for
that hardware card or peripheral before installing Windows Server
2008 R2. Remember, you have the option of downgrading to the 32-bit
version of Windows Server 2008 if it is more appropriate for your
environment.
Of course, if a driver isn’t available, choose a vendor that
does have a driver to retain all the advantages that 64-bit
provides. Personally, we chose to change hardware vendors when we
found deficiencies in 64-bit driver support. And we told our old
hardware vendors exactly why we dropped them, too.
2. Installation and Initial Configuration
Installation and configuration of Windows Server 2008 R2 has changed significantly from the
process we’re all more or less familiar with from Windows Server 2003.
There are far fewer steps required to actually begin the installation,
with hardly any input required from the user. You don’t even need to
enter a Product ID (PID). Eventually, you’ll have to enter the PID before you can
activate the server, but a lot of steps that used to be required
before the installation process would begin have now been moved to the
initial configuration stage.
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Windows Server 2008 R2 normally requires you to enter a PID
for installation. But you can simply skip entering the PID and then
you’ll have to select exactly which version of Windows Server 2008
R2 you’re installing. You’ll get a couple of extra prompts and
warnings, but if you only want to run a demonstration or evaluation
environment for 30 days or fewer, just skip entering the PID. You’ll
have a fully functional Windows Server 2008 R2 installation for
those 30 days.
If you decide to convert a server installed without a PID to a
fully activated Windows Server 2008 R2 server, you need to enter a
PID for the exact same version of Windows Server 2008 R2 that you
said you were installing when you initially installed. That means if
you used retail media to install the server, you must provide a
retail key. If you used the SBS 2008 media, you use the key provided
with SBS 2008. You can’t change which version is installed without
completely reinstalling Windows Server 2008 R2.
To enter a product key for a server installed without a PID,
use the slmgr.vbs -ipk command.
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2.1. Installation
Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 from standard
distribution media onto a clean server with no operating system on
it requires just seven screens at the very beginning, and the entire
rest of the installation will complete without further interruption.
You don’t need to enter any network information, computer name,
domain name, or other information except the actual PID associated
with the installation and the language to install.
Use the following steps to install Windows Server 2008 R2 onto
a bare server using standard DVD media:
Turn on the server, and immediately insert the Windows
Server 2008 R2 DVD for the Windows Server 2008 architecture you
want to install. If the primary hard disk hasn’t got a bootable
operating system on it, you’ll go directly into the Windows
Server 2008 R2 installation process. If the disk has a bootable
operating system on it, you might be prompted with Press Any Key
To Boot From CD Or DVD. If you are, press a key.
When the initial Install Windows page appears, shown in
Figure 1,
select the language and other regional settings to use for this
installation.
Click Next to open the page shown in Figure 2. From
here, you can choose to repair a corrupted Windows Server 2008
R2 installation, or get additional information before
installing.
Click Install Now to open the Type Your Product Key For
Activation page of the Install Windows Wizard as shown in Figure 3. (If
you’re installing a volume license version of Windows
Server 2008 R2, you won’t see this screen.)
Type in a product key for this installation of Windows
Server 2008 R2.
Leave the Automatically Activate Windows When I’m Online
check box selected unless you need to control when activation
occurs.
Click Next to open the Select The Operating System You
Want To Install page of the Install Windows Wizard as shown in
Figure 4. If
you’re installing a version that allows you to enter a product
key, you’ll only see a list of versions that match the product
key you entered.
Select either a Full Installation or a Server Core
Installation. This selection is irrevocable—you can’t change an
installation at a later time from Full to Server Core, or from
Server Core to Full.
Click Next to open the Please Read The License Terms page.
Select I Accept The License Terms. You don’t have a
choice—either accept them or the installation terminates.
Click Next to open the Which Type Of Installation Do You
Want page, and select Custom (Advanced) to open the Where Do You
Want To Install Windows page shown in Figure 5.
The first disk on your computer will be highlighted. You
can select any disk shown, or if the disk you want to install on
isn’t displayed, you can load any required driver at this point
by clicking Load Driver. Clicking Drive Options (Advanced) will
give you additional options to repartition or format the
selected drive.
When you’ve selected the drive to install on, click Next
and the installation will begin. You won’t be prompted again
until the installation completes and you’re prompted for a
password for the Administrator account.
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The default selected drive when you’re installing an SBS second server is the first drive
as enumerated by the BIOS. You can change the selection if the
drive you want isn’t selected, or add drivers for additional
controllers if the drive you want isn’t visible. For those
familiar with earlier versions of Windows, you’ll be glad to know
that Windows Server 2008 R2 finally adds support for something
besides a floppy drive for loading storage drivers during
installation! As shown in Figure 6, you can
load drivers from floppy, from CD or DVD, or from a USB flash
drive.
If you need to change partitions on a drive, format it, or
even extend it to add additional space, just click Drive Options
(Advanced) to display additional options for managing and
configuring your disks during installation, as shown in Figure 7.
New in SBS 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is the ability to extend
existing partitions, even during the installation process.
Although this isn’t a feature that matters in completely new
installations, it can be a useful feature when you’re recycling a
computer. You can extend a partition onto available unallocated
space on the same disk.
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Note:
If you need to open a command window during the installation
process, just press Shift+F10. Now you can manually run Diskpart.exe or any other tool available at this
point in the process to manually load a driver or fine-tune
partitioning.
When the installation completes, Windows Server 2008 R2 will restart and proceed to the
logon screen. You’ll need to enter a new password for the
Administrator account, as shown in Figure 8, and then log
on to the new server.
When you log on, you’ll see the Initial Configuration Tasks
(ICT) Wizard, shown in Figure 9, which makes
the initial setup of your new server easy.
