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Hyper-V, a key feature of Windows Server 2008, has now released to manufacturing (RTM) and is available for deployment into production environments. With help of ServerManagerCMD.exe I will install the Hyer-V role.

What is ServerManagerCMD.exe?

Server Manager in Windows Server 2008 provides a single source for managing a server’s identity and system information, displaying server status, identifying problems with server role configuration, and managing all roles installed on the server.

ServerManagerCMD is powerful tool and within one command line you can install the Hyper-V role. Make sure you installed the Windows 2008 RTM version and updated your system with KB950050.

With ServerManagerCMD.exe you will be able to install all those roles:

Active Directory Certificate Services
Active Directory Domain Services
Active Directory Federation Services
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
Active Directory Rights Management Services
Application Server
Availability and Scalability
DHCP Server
DNS Server
Fax Server
File Services
Hyper-V
Network Policy and Access Services
Print Services
Streaming Media Services
Terminal Services
Troubleshooting
UDDI Services
Web Server
Windows Deployment Services

Finally we get a single command line tool for this administrative task. I hate having different text files and run the cmd batch scripts.

Related links:

• Technet - Server Manager

Recently the motherboard of one of the HP ProLiant ML370 G4  was replaced due faulty hardware, but the ILO was never reconfigured back. The ILO board was not reachable anymore on the old IP address. Last weekend we had issues with Active Directory and none of the domain accounts were able to logon locally with a RDP session; so the ops team tried the ILO remote web interface and this failed. Today I was able to find the IP address of the ILO board with the help of the “HP System Management Home Page” tools. I tried to login with the known password but the authentication failed. Couple years ago when these HP servers were deployed there is option in the bios to reset the ILO setting and change the ip and username setting. I do not want to reboot the server and manually reconfigure the ILO board from the console. HP has command line tool for this named HPONCFG. Please go here or search for HPONCFG on google.

HP Lights-Out Online Configuration Utility (HPONCFG)
Version 1.5.2.0

Description
———–

HP Lights-Out Online Configuration utility is a command line utility used to configure
iLO, iLO 2 and RILOE II from within the Windows operating systems without requiring a
reboot of the server.

I am not able to show the screenshots of HPONCFG.exe tool. The server is managed by third party, but after you installed the cpqsetup.exe on the server you should be able to configure the ILO board.

Did you ever tried to automate the process of having a script or shortcut to automatically start a virtual guest with VMWare Player? After you login you can start VMWare Player and locate the virtual machine or click the recent one but still you need to control this process. Maybe you want to start the virtual machine at system startup with Scheduled Tasks or instruct a user to click on a specific shortcut for a pre-created virtual machine he needs to test.

I created a small script which can used for this process. Create new file in notepad and paste the commands below. Make sure the VMWare Player installation path is correct and the location of your VMWare guest.

@Echo off

REM VMWare Player cmd script for virtual guest startup

REM Ivan Versluis @ Networknet.nl

REM Email: Ivan.Versluis@networknet.nl

REM Date: 29/01/2008

"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe" "C:\VMWareGuests\Server\Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition.vmx"

The result