Windows Server 2008 Training

Final thoughts on Server Backup

Glenn Weadock — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:45:35 -0400

One can understand Microsoft's desire to leverage technologies like Volume Shadowcopy Service and the Virtual Hard Drive format, and there is certainly far too much reinventing of wheels in the software industry. The new backup tool has some solid virtues: for example, it is commendably quick performing its favorite task of performing a full-volume backup in a disk-to-disk scenario. And many of us can appreciate being able to restore from a full backup by simply booting to the Windows Recovery Environment without having to install the operating system in order to get to the restore software.

However, we seem to be giving up a lot to get those benefits.

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More backup features in Windows Server 2008

Glenn Weadock — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:51:49 -0400

Schedulability. No complaints here. The new backup tool lets you set your own schedule for repeating backups. In fact, the utility nudges you to create a backup schedule the first time you use it.

Scriptability. When you opt to include the command-line software as well as the graphical tool when adding the Windows Server Backup feature via Server Manager, you get the WBADMIN.EXE program as well as some PowerShell commandlets (although remember that Server Core does not support PowerShell).

For more details on WBADMIN, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=93131. Meanwhile, here's an example of how you might use WBADMIN to perform a full backup to a remote share:

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Back Up Scenarios in WS 2008 - Part 2

Glenn Weadock — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:50:16 -0400

You can't back up individual files or folders with Windows Server Backup. You can't even do this from the WBADMIN command-line tool. Heck, even Vista has a file backup utility, such as it is. We know disk space is cheap these days, but surely Microsoft doesn't think we want to back up everything on a volume every time we create a backup? This omission clearly falls into the "what were they thinking?" category.

To be fair, I should mention that you can restore a single file or folder from a full-volume backup. But that doesn't help you if you just need to back up a particular folder, and you're in a hurry. You're going to have to back up the entire volume that contains that folder in order to be able to recover it later.

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Back Up Scenarios in WS 2008 - Part 1

Glenn Weadock — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:02:55 -0400

A few common backup scenarios serve to illustrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of the new Windows Server Backup tool. Let's look at them one at a time.

Image backup. In this scenario, you're backing up an entire volume and perhaps multiple volumes, with the intention of having a backup that you can use to restore a machine that suffers a catastrophic failure affecting an entire physical disk or disk array.

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Installation and Use of Server 2008 Backup

Glenn Weadock — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:53:55 -0400

Windows Server Backup is available on all versions of Server 2008, including 64-bit versions. Install it as a feature via Server Manager, either interactively or with the following command:

servermanagercmd.exe -install Backup-Features

The utility is available on Server Core systems, as well. Use the command

start /w ocsetup WindowsServerBackup

to install it on those systems.

You need to be an administrator or a member of Backup Operators to use this tool, which appears in the Administrative Tools folder after installation. When you run it, the tool presents you with a wizard interface (see Figure 1) having the following steps:

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Windows Server 2008 Backup and Restore

Glenn Weadock — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:07:44 -0400

Microsoft seems to be intent on undoing its longstanding practice of licensing other people's software for use in its operating systems. Take the Longhorn code project, for example. The evergreen disk defragmenter, a limited version of Executive Software's Diskeeper, has been replaced by new code written by Microsoft. More significantly, the NTBACKUP program from (originally) Seagate Software has also been replaced by new Microsoft code.

One could argue that licensing code written by specialists was a good thing for operating system users. Diskeeper worked well and provided a graphical interface (and progress indicator) that the new defrag tool conspicuously lacks, although Microsoft claims other virtues for its new utility.

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How can you create a starter GPO?

Glenn Weadock — Tue, 06 May 2008 08:37:04 -0400

If you open the Group Policy Management Console, for example on a Windows Server 2008 machine or a pre-Service-Pack-1 Vista machine, you will see a new container in the navigation pane, titled "Starter GPOs." If you have never created a starter GPO before, a button will prompt you to create a folder in which to store your starter GPOs (see Figure X). This folder will be named StarterGPOs and will reside in the SYSVOL share (in a subfolder based on the domain name) on all domain controllers.

Once you've built the folder, creating a new starter GPO is as easy as right-clicking the Starter GPOs node in the GPMC navigation pane and choosing New. Name your GPO and give it an optional comment.

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How do Starter GPOs Work? Part 1

Glenn Weadock — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:38:24 -0400

Starter GPOs contain settings that you would find in the Administrative Templates container of an ordinary GPO, in either the User Configuration section or the Computer Configuration section. Group policy objects contain three (or more) containers in each of the user and computer configuration Policies nodes:

• Software settings (for distributing software via GPOs)
• Windows settings (pretty much everything that isn't a pure Registry setting)
• Administrative Templates (Registry-based policies)

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Everything you need to know about Server 2008 Group Policy Objects (GPOs)

Glenn Weadock — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:32:02 -0400

For many years, word processing users have been building so-called template documents that form the starting point for creating a new document of a particular type. I remember creating a consulting contract template in WordPerfect ‘way back in 1986 when I started my consulting company. This was a big timesaver: when a new job came along, I just had to fill in a few blanks and create an appendix listing the work to be done.

An old Chinese proverb advises us to "preserve the old, but know the new." The old template concept has been preserved for us in the new Windows Server 2008 operating system, in the form of what Microsoft calls the starter GPO (GPO being short for "Group Policy Object").

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Server Manager - One-stop shop for Server Administration

Glenn Weadock — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:11:26 -0400

If you're like me, you occasionally wish that your virtual desktop didn't need to be as cluttered as your physical desktop. (The desktop metaphor that the folks over at Xerox developed a couple of decades ago is a little more accurate than I'd like!) In an attempt to ease some of that clutter, Microsoft has given us Server Manager, a new console that combines elements of several Server 2003 administrative tools. The idea is that Server Manager is a one-stop shop for server administration. Although it doesn't quite succeed in that regard, its improvements are welcome.

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