Windows

Simple PowerShell To Remove Administrators

Here’s a quick one liner script to remove non-Administrator(s) from the administrator group


Get-LocalGroupMember Administrators | where name -NotLike *Administrator* | Remove-LocalGroupMember administrators

MDT Error 0xc0000001

In the midst of attempting to deploy out a new Windows Server 2019 installation I came across a new issue. As mentioned in the title of this quick block. My remote virtual machine posted the error 0xc0000001 which was odd since I was able to PXE call from my onsite domain controller (DC02) and start to load the boot file config.

After some research and a few cups of coffee I found that the resolution to this issue was the Enable Variable Windows Extension. To fix this follow the instructions below…
1. Open your Windows Deployment Services app or WDS
2. Right click on your WDS server in the left pane
3. Left click on Properties
4. Click on the TFTP tab within the properties window
5. Uncheck Enable Variable Windows Extension
6. Lastly Reboot your WDS Server

If you followed all the steps above correctly you should be able to PXE boot your VM from MDT now. Enjoy!

Clone A VM On vCenter 6.7

Cloning a virtual machine can come in pretty handy… Especially when you need to troubleshoot or tinker with an existing virtual machine you might just not know enough about or a previous admin didn’t document. All Admins ~ “Please DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT!”.
For this article, I’m going to show you step by step on how to create a clone of a virtual machine and disable the virtual NIC.

Accessing The VMware vCenter

Open any browser of your choosing (IE11, Edge, Chrome, Firefox) and enter the vCenter DNS name of your system in the URL bar for the browser.

URL for vCenter

If you’ve enter all the above information correctly. You will be prompted with a Getting Started page. Click on Launch vSphere Client (HTML5). Next, you’ll want to enter the information to access the vCenter administrative console. This section, again, can vary depending on your setup. For my case, I have SSO enabled with a IT Security group. So, I’ll enter in my domain credentials and sign in.

Cloning Virtual Machine

This should be a given but confirm you have enough resources to clone the virtual machine of your choosing or the other hosts in the cluster do.

I chose the Development – SQL19 server I have running in my development vlan. By right clicking on that virtual machine I now have a slew of options, one being the clone option… click on clone. Click Clone to Virtual Machine.
You’ll want to select

Select the datastore that best suites your needs or environment.

Check the following boxes:
* Customize this virtual machine’s hardware
* Power on virtual machine after creation

Disconnect the NIC from the vSwitch by click on the check box next to Network Adapter 1. If you have multiple NIC’s you’ll want to repeat the process.

Lastly, Clicking on the next button in the task above will start to process the cloning of the virtual machine. When the cloning is initiated you’ll see the process below in the Recent Tasks section of vCenter.

Install Windows Server 2019

After the ISO loads on your physical or virtual server. Follow the instructions below to install the operating system.

Click on Install Now

Select your version that you’d like to install. Mine is a little different since its a custom ISO for Vultr.

Accept the terms and conditions for the installation.

For this lab, select the Custom: Install Windows only (Advanced)

Choose the disk that you’ve assigned to the virtual machine or select the only one that is available.

Allow Windows to install on the disk until completed.

After the installation completes you should be prompted to create a password for the local account. As usual, choose a good password.

How To Install Server 2019 On VMware

I’m going to show you how to install Server 2019 on a VMware based platform. For most readers, you’ll probably be in a situation where either you are moving on from an earlier version or installing a fresh copy. For this guide, were going to go through and install a fresh copy.

System Requirements (Estimated)

Processor – 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
RAM – 512 MB
Disk Space – 32 GB
Network – Gigabit (10/100/1000baseT) Ethernet NIC
Optical Storage – DVD drive (if installing the OS from DVD media)
Video – Super VGA (1024 x 768) or higher-resolution (optional)
Input Devices – Keyboard and mouse (optional)
Internet – Broadband access (optional)

Installation

We’ll want to download the evaluation ISO from the Microsoft website. You do have other options to download a VHD or setup an Azure instance, which, we’ll cover in another article.
Windows Server 2019 Evaluation Download

Once you’ve selected the ISO evaluation you should expect a 4.9GB download to start. If you are on Windows the download will be located under your Downloads folder or C:\Users\User\Downloads. After the download is complete, for my case, we’ll open up the VMware console.

Choose the ESXi host – 192.168.4.13, right click, and select create a New Virtual Machine…
See the slideshow below for details on how to setup the virtual machine before deploying the operating system.

Select “Create a new virtual machine”.
Create a name for the virtual machine – something that best fits your environment.
If you have more than one host – select the host that you want to install the operating system on.
Choose your storage. Again, this will be dependent on the environment you have in place. If you have shared storage you’ll want to select the correct datastore or direct storage.
For compatibility reasons, I’ve selected ESXi 6.5 and later…
Select the correct Guest OS information.
Lastly, customize the hardware appropriately. You’ll want to refer to the above Systems Requirements.

Deploying Windows Server 2019

Now we are in the deployment phase of the operating system. If you haven’t logged out of VMware vCenter or ESXi start the virtual machine by click on the sideways green triangle.

Next, select either the Launch Web Console or Launch Remote Console. Preferably in this case you’ll want to use the Remote Console to add the ISO unless your PXE booting.
_{* If you select the Launch Remote Console option you can download this VMRC file to get started – Here}