The Deployment Bunny

I use Windows Server 2016 on all my lab machines, therefore I also use Data Deduplication to save space. But I don’t run it in the background, i run it basically when I need space.

The PowerShell script. (https://github.com/DeploymentBunny/Files/tree/master/Tools/Start-VIADeDupJob)

Function Wait-VIADedupJob
{
while ((Get-DedupJob).count -ne 0 )
{
Get-DedupJob
Start-Sleep -Seconds 30
}
}

foreach($item in Get-DedupVolume){
Wait-VIADedupJob
$item | Start-DedupJob -Type Optimization -Priority High -Memory 80
Wait-VIADedupJob
$item | Start-DedupJob -Type GarbageCollection -Priority High -Memory 80 -Full
Wait-VIADedupJob
$item | Start-DedupJob -Type Scrubbing -Priority High -Memory 80 -Full
Wait-VIADedupJob
}
Get-DedupStatus

/mike

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the availability of performance guidelines for Windows Server 2016. They are not super advanced but they are perfectly fine. One nice thing is that you can view them offline (you don’t always have access to a fancy Internet connection working in a datacenter. My take on this is that you should browse trough the topics that you work with, take the ideas, convert them into reality and implement them in your deployment process. As they say in an old movie, and I quote:

– I feel the need, the need for more speed…

Server hardware

• Hardware performance considerations
• Hardware power considerations

Server role

• Active Directory Servers
• Containers
• File Servers
• Hyper-V Servers
• Remote Desktop Servers
• Web Servers
• Software Defined Networking (SDN) (new)

Server subsystem

• Cache and Memory Management
• Software Defined Networking
• Storage Spaces Direct
• Networking subsystem (new)

Offline viewing is here: Download PDF

/mike

So, Microsoft has “moved” WS2016 documentation to http://docs.microsoft.com. It dos make sense, the “docs” site is better suited for having this information then TechNet/Msdn.

You can find items like

• What’s new – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/what-s-new-in-windows-server-2016
• Get Started – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/server-basics
• Administer – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/index
• Failover Clustering – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/failover-clustering/failover-clustering-overview
• Identity and Access – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/identity-and-access
• Networking – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/networking/networking
• Remote Access – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/index
• Security and Assurance – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/security/security-and-assurance
• Storage – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage
• Virtualization – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/virtualization

And you can download it as a PDF, very nice to have – Download PDF

/mike

Ok, so from time to time this happens, it should not, but it does

Issue:

You open the local Administrator group and all domain user accounts is just SID numbers, (a few could actually be names, but that is not very common). It looks like this:

Solution:

I’ll guess there are many ways to fix this, but the Quick and Dirty is to:

– Disjoin the domain (don’t restart)

– Join back

– Restart

/mike

Sometimes you need to run the full UI of Windows Server 2016 and when you do you get the extremely annoying Download Maps Manager error in Server Manager. First of all, you don’t need it, and even if you did need it, it does not work anyway. So, what to do then? Disable it using PowerShell or use GPO’s

Issue:

Download Maps Manager MapBroker Stopped Automatic (Delayed Start)

Fix:

Use PowerShell:

Get-Service -Name MapsBroker | Set-Service -StartupType Disabled -Confirm:$false

Use GPO:

Create a policy, configure it to affect all Windows Server 2016, set the Download Maps Manager to Disabled, save, done

/mike

Note:

Ok, so you might not do an in-place upgrade, instead you re-install the entire server, but “if” you do, you need to run this command sometimes

Issue:

Configuration failed for Windows Server Update Services…

Fix:

Open an elevated command prompt and execute the following

For Windows Internal Database (WID)
%programfiles%\update services\tools\wsusutil.exe postinstall CONTENT_DIR=C:\WSUS

SQL Server databases
%programfiles%\update services\tools\wsusutil.exe postinstall CONTENT_DIR=C:\WSUS SQL_INSTANCE_NAME=<database server name>

/m