Using Sysprep saves you time by not having to walk through the operating system installation process, but it saves you even more time by not having to wait for Windows Update to roll all of the current patches down onto every new system that you create. In Figure 2.25, you can see that I have walked through the step to Add other servers to manage and selected some of the servers that are within my test network. I now have access, right here from my Windows 10 client computer, to manage and monitor all of the servers in my lab without even having to log in to them: Examples of implementing identity in Hybrid scenarios, including Azure AD DS on Azure IaaS and managed AD DS Disk: Server 2022 requires a PCI Express ( PCIe) storage adapter. ATA/PATA/IDE are not allowed for boot drives. The minimum storage space requirement is 32 GB, but Desktop Experience consumes about 4 GB more space than Server Core, so take that into consideration.

First, just like you have already done, we need to prepare our first server by getting the Windows Server 2022 operating system installed. Refrain from installing any full roles onto the server because, depending on the role and its unique configuration, the Sysprep process that we run shortly could cause problems for individual role configurations. Install the operating system and make sure device drivers are all squared away and you’re ready for the next step. Configuring customizations and updates onto your new server You could have many servers all doing their jobs, and every time a new operating system is released, you simply run the installer and upgrade them. Voila—magic! Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work like that, and I almost never see server administrators willing to take risks in doing an in-place upgrade to an existing production server. It is much more common that we always build brand-new servers alongside the currently running production servers. Once the new server is configured and ready to accept its responsibilities, then, and only then, does the actual workload migrate over to the new server from the old one. In a planned, carefully sculpted migration process, once the migration of duties is finished, then the old server is shut down and taken away. We will discuss this a little bit more near the end of this chapter and try to convince you that in-place upgrades are actually much better than they used to be. You are now ready to create your master image from this hard disk. Creating your master image of the drive audit: This restarts the machine into a special audit mode, where you have the option of adding additional drivers into Windows before the final image gets taken.And now, let’s cover these steps in a little more detail. Installing Windows Server 2022 onto a new server So, rather than simply throwing all of the switches at you and letting you decide, let’s take a look at the ones that I typically use. I will make use of /generalize so that I make my new servers unique, and I also like to use /oobe so that the mini-setup wizard launches during the first boot of Windows on any of my new systems. Then, I will, of course, also use /shutdown because I need this server to be offline immediately following Sysprep so that I can take a copy of the hard drive to be used as my master image. So, my fully groomed sysprep command is shown in the following code: sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown

Make sure that your server does NOT boot into Windows again until after you have created your master image or taken your master copy of the .VHDX file. The first time that Windows boots, it will inject the new SID information, and you want that only to happen on new servers that you have created based on your new image. Now, before I go too far down this road of describing the Sysprep process, I will also note that there are more involved technologies available within the Windows infrastructure that allow automated operating system and server rollouts, which can make the new server rollout process even easier than what I am describing here. The problem with some of the automated technologies is that the infrastructure required to make them work properly is more advanced than many folks will have access to if they are just learning the ropes with Windows Server. In other words, having a fully automated server rollout mechanism isn’t very feasible for small environments or test labs, which is where a lot of us live while we are learning about these new technologies. unattend: There is a special answerfile that you can create that, when specified, will be used in conjunction with the Sysprep process to further configure your new servers as they come online. For example, you can specify in this answerfile that a particular installer or batch file is to be launched upon the first Windows boot following Sysprep. This can be useful for any kind of cleanup task that you might want to perform, for example, if you had a batch file on your system that you used to flush out the log files following the first boot of new servers. This book covers a range of remote access technologies, and even teaches management of PKI and certificates. You will be empowered to virtualize your datacenter with Hyper-V, and deploy your own Remote Desktop Services "farm". Learn about Server Core, built-in redundancy, and explore troubleshooting skills. All this on top of chapters about core infrastructure technologies such as Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and Group Policy. What you will learnKeep in mind, these are the bare minimum specs that your server is going to require. Any real server in a production environment will need far more memory and disk space, and there is no magic number for what you will need. It depends on what workload you are going to expect out of your server. Without a doubt, the most common place that roles and features get installed is right inside the graphical wizards available as soon as your operating system has been installed. By default, a tool called Server Manager launches automatically every time you log in to Windows Server 2022. We will take a closer look at Server Manager itself later in this chapter, but for our purposes here, we will simply use it as a launching platform to get to our wizard, which will guide us through the installation of our first role on this new server we are putting together. If I now choose to add a new role from inside Server Manager that is aware of multiple servers in the network, when I get to the screen asking me where I want to install that role, I see that I can choose to install a new role or feature onto one of my other servers, even though I am not working from the console of those servers, as shown in Figure 2.23: New servers created from a sysprepped image file always receive a new hostname when they boot. This often confuses admins who might have named their master server something such as MASTER. After booting your new servers, you can expect to see randomized names on your new servers, and you will have to rename them according to their new duties in life. The complete guide for system administrators to install, manage, secure, and squeeze return on investment from their Windows Server 2022 infrastructure

I am configuring this server to support a small lab environment, so for me, it makes sense to put these core infrastructure services together in the same box, as shown in Figure 2.12:After launching this command, you will see Sysprep moving through some processes within Windows, and after a couple of minutes, your server will shut itself down, as shown in Figure 2.38:

WAC even has support for third-party vendors creating extensions for the WAC interface, so this tool is going to continue growing. If you have followed along with the test lab configuration in the book so far, you will recognize the words “Windows Admin Center” from a pop-up window that displays itself every time that Server Manager is opened. Microsoft wants administrators to know about WAC so badly that they are reminding you that you should start using it every time you log into a Server 2022 box, as shown in Figure 2.27: In Mastering Windows Server 2022 with Azure Cloud Services: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, 5-time Microsoft MVP Winner William Panek delivers a comprehensive and practical blueprint for planning, implementing, and managing environments that include Azure IaaS-hosted Windows Server-based workloads. There it is! Okay, so now that I know the correct name of the feature, let’s run the command to install it, as shown in the following example: Add-WindowsFeature Telnet-Client Stop doing that! It’s here to help, I promise. Figure 2.18 shows the default view of Server Manager on my new domain controller:Now forget everything I just told you about remote server management and focus on this instead. I’m kidding… sort of. All of the tools we have already discussed are still stable, relevant, and great ways to interact with and manage Windows Server. However, there’s a new kid in town, and Microsoft expects them to be very popular. You’ll learn to use the expansive, hybrid capabilities of Azure, how to migrate virtual and physical server workloads to Azure IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, and how to manage and secure Azure virtual machines running Windows Server 2022.