Sometimes you’ll find it is necessary to stop a service in Windows, but using the normal GUI method fails as the service gets stuck on ‘Stopping’ and never stops. When this happens, you are unable to start the service again. This happened to a client today with their Websense Filter Service, and here’s how we resolved it – the same method works for other services too.
While Server Core is undoubtedly a great idea, sometimes you need to make a quick change or you need to check a setting and the relevant command just won’t come to mind. There is a solution! The Core Configurator is a CodePlex project that can be used to administer Server Core installations, and a new version (2.0) was released on the 1st of December 2009.
In a nutshell, it’s a small application that you can either copy to the server or else run from a USB stick or network drive. Here’s how to get it working on your system!
If you’re anything like me then you probably find that over the course of a working day you end up with lots of remote desktop sessions open to various servers. Sometimes it’s tricky to remember which box you’re looking at, and that’s where BGInfo from Sysinternals/Microsoft comes in. It’s a small application that generates a bitmap wallpaper when you login, showing a number of useful things about the system such as IP address, hostname, disk info – there are lots of different options to choose from. I find it really useful, and what’s more it doesn’t have much of a hit on your machine as it only runs when you logon.
I’ve just found this site from Microsoft with some excellent training resources for Windows Server 2008 R2. Although it is entitled ‘Developer Training’, there are lots of things in there which are of interest to a systems administrator as well.
Of course, the main Channel 9 site has some other great courses available as well – currently Sharepoint 2010, Office 2010, Visual Studio 2010… plenty of useful and up-to-date information there.
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