Early this year, I pulled the Windows Server 2008 Feature Components and Active Directory posters out of TechNet Magazine and hung them up over my desk. I then excitedly installed Windows Server 2008 on my test server using my TechNet subscription. I was eager to try out the many enhanced features of Microsoft’s new server OS before they reached wide use. One of the most promising features added to this server OS was built-in virtualization (available on x64 systems only). In order to do my daily troubleshooting and research, I need several OS instances and builds available, such as Windows Server 2003, a separate server with MS SQL installed, and SUSE Linux running a nagios monitoring server. Other than Hyper-V, I was also interested to try out the improvements made to Active Directory, such as the restartable AD service.

The first thing I noticed after building up the new server was the Server Manager screen that greets the administrative user on logon. I was impressed with the array of features that can be managed from this console as well as the breadth of the information about each feature that was presented. For instance, after installing DNS, the DNS service information and relevant event logs appear under the DNS feature in the Server Manager console.

The next thing that I noticed was that the new server would not reboot – it would simply hang on shutdown at a black screen interminably. At first, I thought this was the long shut down time that I was warned about. Apparently, there have been improvements made to the shutdown process that reduce the chances of file corruption due to services that fail to shut down completely before the allotted shutdown timeout period.

After a little research, I discovered that several devices drivers could not be found, including the one for ACPI. This meant that I had to be physically present to restart the computer after software updates and OS configuration changes. The test server that I’m using is an off-brand grey box, whereas major manufacturers like HP and Dell have probably already worked out any major driver kinks by this time. However, driver support is something to keep in mind.

After configuring a DNS server on the 2008 box, I installed Active Directory. As promised, the AD process runs as a service that can be stopped and restarted. This is convenient if you need to perform offline operations on a DC. As I explored around the AD tools, I noticed that GPMC was installed by default, so I didn’t have to download and install a toolkit to use it.

Once Active Directory was installed and running, I turned to the biggest new feature in Server 2008 – Hyper-V virtualization. Because it was early in the release cycle, only Hyper-V RC0 was available. Right away it was apparent that it was a 1.0 technology. Hyper-V only supported a few operating systems, and getting those few installed was far more laborious than on the other virtualization system that I’ve used. Many people have expressed interest in this technology, as it promises to save licensing money on virtualization. Stay tuned for an upcoming entry on Hyper-V, because the topic deserves a separate treatment. In the meantime, I recommend holding off for some basic features that are still missing.

Shortly after I had my test server configured just the way I needed to be productive, my activation grace period ran out. I attempted to activate my instance of Windows, but I received a message that the DNS server could not be contacted. I thought this was strange, since the server was a DNS server, and it could contact Microsoft without a problem. Once the grace period expires, basic Windows functions are no longer available, such as updating device drivers automatically. I could have reset the activation period for another 240 days, but this would only be putting off the inevitable.

After extensive searching, I found a Microsoft article that described the problem: “Activation Error: Code 0x8007232b DNS Name does not exist.” According to this article, my options were: a) set up a Key Management Server (KMS), b) use a Multiple Activation Key (MAK), or c) use the license key. Since this was a TechNet-distributed version of Windows, the TechNet site insisted that I did not need a key, and no key was made available. This only left the option of creating a KMS. To prepare for this, I began reading the extensive “Volume Activation 2.0 Resources for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.” It was here I discovered that until five instances of Vista and Server 2008 on unique hardware on your network made activation requests of the KMS, no requests would be approved. Here I was stuck, since I did not have five unique computers on which I could install Vista or 2008, just to get my test server activated. It seems that small businesses using TechNet for testing fell through the cracks of Microsoft’s new licensing plan.

After six months of using Windows Server 2008 on my testing server, I concluded that the OS is not mature enough to be worth the trouble of keeping it going in my situation. I do encourage others to try it out in a testing environment to familiarize themselves with some of the nascent features. I’ve rebuilt my test server with Windows Server 2003, and I’ll continue testing Windows Server 2008 as a virtual machine. I look forward to exploring and writing about the greatly improved performance logging capabilities, the new application virtualization feature in Terminal Services, and Hyper-V. Check back for more articles on these topics in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Server 2008 posters will continue to hang optimistically over my monitor.

Posted by Amber Pham on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 4:07 pm.