1

MCP Connection Series:

Changes in Windows Server
Introduction from 2008 to 2012

2 My Experiences
What to
3 consider?
Resources for
4 you

Introduction
Chris
Evans

Premier Field
Engineer

Dedicated
Support
Engineer

US based in in the
NY Metro district.
Support commercial
enterprise
customers.

Over 17 years
experience
supporting
Windows
Platform
AD specialist with
over 14 years.

Premier Support Offerings (PFE

specific)
Rapid Onsite
Services
Proactive or
Reactive

Dedicated
Support Engineer
PT/ FT resource who

assists with optimization,

proactive upgrade, and
migration planning and
training.

Developer PFE
code reviews, provides

Risk Assessments
and Health Checks

On premise or remote. Available

for most core technologies,
Windows, AD, SharePoint, SQL,
System Center, etc.

Premier Mission
Critical
Tier 1 solution support for
mission critical applications
and services. SLA driven
response with a team of
PFE SMEs in the various
technologies that comprise
the solution.

Workshops
Available on premise, (closed), in
MS offices (open), or Remote via
Webcasts.

Custom

Cloud PFE

Specialists that can help

your organization plan your
move into the cloud whether
it be public cloud, private
cloud, or a hybrid solution

My Experiences: What have I

learned?
Things
have
changed
What was once

applicable in earlier
Windows version
does not necessarily
remain applicable
today. For example,
modifying or
disabling the default
startup behavior of

Improved
OOB
security
Adding extensive file
system ACLs on the
OS drive are no
longer necessary to
harden the system
and often result in
broken functionality,
unnecessary
complexity, and

OS
partition
size
When sizing the OS

partition, take into

account the 10 year
Windows support
lifecycle. Sizing the
OS partition too
small leads to
increased support
costs and down time

My Experiences: What have I

learned?
Login
scripts

Page file
size

Utilize Group Policy

Preferences to
implement the
configuration
settings instead.

Size the page file

based on the
workload, installed
RAM, commit charge
and dump
requirements.

Where scripts are

unavoidable, replace
with modern

A page file on the OS

drive is no longer

Memory
dump
config
Dedicated dump file

can reside on a nonOS drive.

Kernel dumps
typically require a
~6-8GB dedicated
dump file.
A ~400 MB page file

My Experiences: What have I

learned?
Patching
has
changed
Service Packs are a
thing of the past.

Roll up packages
based on roles (i.e.
AD, Print, Cluster)
are the new
standard.
Note that these are

Basic PS
skills are
required
More and more CLI

tools are being

deprecated and
replaced with
PowerShell cmdlets.
Newer Admin UI
tools also utilize PS
behind the scenes

New inbox
functionali
ty
NIC teaming * (i.e.
LBFO) including for VM

guests when used with Hyper-V

(* introduced in WS 2012)

Removable GUI *

similar to Server Core but now

possible post installation, also
GUI can be added back
whenever needed. (* introduced in WS
2012)

What to consider?
Disk
partition
scheme
Understand

differences between
UEFI and BIOS based
systems and the
impact it has on the
disk partition layout
and format.

Activation
GPO for new OS

Windows Server 2012

requires immediate
activation.
WS2012 and newer can
activate directly from
AD once the activation
object is present and
activated.
KMS still required for

New GPO
for new OS
Highly recommend
utilizing the free
Security Compliance
Manager Solution
Accelerator to build
new baseline GPOs
for Windows 2012
OS and newer; avoid
reusing existing

What to consider?
.NET for
MS
support
Many support tools
tools
from MS require

the .NET framework

be installed.
Proactively
incorporating these
into the build will
improve the time to
resolution when

PowerShel
l config via
GPO
GPO for new OS
Apply
a PowerShell

remote
management
configuration via
group policy to
ensure you can
remotely manage
your servers on day
1. Think Server

Consider
black box
recorders
Windows Perfmon

and ETL log tracing

can be implemented
to run continuously
using a circular log
file as a mechanism
to collect diagnostic
data for post
mortem analysis

Resources for you

Online
Training
Free online training
on Microsoft Virtual
Academy (
http://www.microsoft
virtualacademy.com
/)

Microsoft
Certificatio
n
Get familiar with the
Microsoft Certification
Program (http://

www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us
/certification-overview.aspx
) . Upgrade your

certification

Additional
Informatio
Learn more about
n
Premier Support (http://

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftse
rvices/support.aspx
)

Premier Support for Devel

opers
Premier Mission Critical
Premier support for Office 36
5

Thank You

2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
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