How to Install Windows Server 2003 (Standard or               Enterprise Edition) on a new Server

Introduction

I am talking about deploying and installing Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard or Enterprise) on a new Server. This step by step document contains screen shots of the installation process of Windows Operating System which will takes you through the complete process of the installation. The installation steps of the Standard and Enterprise Editions are the same no difference in the installation process of the two versions of Windows Server 2003, the difference is in the features only.

Hardware Requirements for Windows Server 2003

As minimum requirements for Windows Server 2003, An Intel processor-based server running Windows Server 2003 with at least 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM can be used to run Windows Server 2003, but as your organization goes bigger and your users are increased, then you should consider bringing a powerful server with latest Processor Technology (Dual Core) and high processor cache (2MB or 4MB), also with at least 512 MB Memory. Microsoft also recommends that the server should have several gigabytes of disk storage (at Least Two SCSI Disks). In addition, servers should be equipped with high-speed network interface cards (Minimum 100 MBps).

Server Disks and Partitions

The partition in which you are going to deploy the Windows 2003 Operating System should be formatted as NTFS not FAT. By default the main partition (C Drive) will host the Windows Operating System and Files, but if you plan to host this folder and files on another Partition/Disk, then you have to make sure that this drive is formatted as NTFS as well.

Install MS Windows Server 2003 on your Server

If your server was purchased from a known vender, as I mentioned above, like HP, DELL, IBM, etc) then this server will come with a complete kit to prepare your server for Microsoft Various Operating Systems installation, and other operating systems like Linux, Unix, MAC, etc. You have to use this kit to prepare your server with all the configuration and drivers for the operating system that you chose. Here I will not discuss these steps, in order to be familiar with these steps, please consult your hardware vender. In this article, I will list the steps to install Windows Server 2003 directory from the Media you purchased from Microsoft Software Partner.

In order to install Windows Server 2003 on your Server, here are the steps:

1. To begin the installation procedure, boot directly from the Windows Server 2003 CD. Your CD-ROM must support bootable CDs. (When you configure partitions and format drives, all data on the server hard drive/Disk will be destroyed).

2. Make sure that you configured your Server BIOS to make the first Boot Drive is the CD/DVD ROM Drive, to be able to boot from the CD/DVD Drive.

3.During the boot, if you were prompted to “Press Any Key to boot from CD” then press any key, you can press the Enter Key or the Space Bar Key for simplicity, then the Windows Installation Process begins.

4. On the Welcome to Setup screen, press Enter

5. Review the License agreement in the next screen and if you agree on all the terms and conditions of this agreement, press F8

6. The next screen shows the existing disks and partitioned space on your server. Here I used a server with Mirrored 2 x 146 GB Disks, so the available unpartitioned space is 130 GB where I will create two partitions only, first partition which will have 20 GB space as C Partition and second partition which will have the remaining space as E Drive.To create the first partition from the above screen, Press C.

7. In the Size Partition specify the size of the new partition, here in our example I will create a partition of 20 GB or 20000 MB and will be used as C Drive, as appears on the next screen. Click Enter to create the new partition.

8. You will be returned to the previous screen to see the new created partition, and how much is remaining for un-partitioned space available for the new partitions.

9. Select the un-partitioned space available to create a new partition (E Drive) with the remaining space available.

10. Your Disks partitions will appear like this:

11. Choose C Drive to install Windows Server 2003 on, click Enter.

12. The next screen will give you options on how you want to format Operating System Partition (C Drive). Choose first option which will format C Drive as NTFS. Click on Enter when you finish the selection.

13. The Setup will start formatting the Partition based on your selection, which is Quick NTFS Format.

14. After formatting C Drive, Windows Setup will start copying the setup files to the Windows Installation Folder created locally on the formatted partition (C Drive).

15. Now, after Setup Process copies the Windows Installation Files locally to the Windows Installation Folder, the server will restart to start the Windows Installation and Configuration Process. Please note that the Server will be restarted Two Times to finish the installation process, this is the first restart, and the second restart will occur after finalizing the configuration of Windows.

16. During restart of your server you will get the following Windows Server 2003 Startup Screen.

17. When the server finishes loading the Windows Setup Files, it will start the Windows Installation and Configuration Wizard.

18. The First Screen after the Windows Installation Wizard is the Regional and Language Settings.

19. Since we are using an English Version of Windows, then the default language will be English, if you want to install additional support language during setup (like Arabic Language Support) click on “Customized”, then from the tabs choose “Language” tab. Under “supplemental language support” tab click on “Install Files for complex script and right-to-left Languages (Including Thai)”.

20. When you choose to install additional language, you will be prompted for a space confirmation message, click Ok on you have available space for this additional files (only 10 MB or more is required).

21. After you finish installing the additional language, click on Next from the Regional and Language settings screen.

22. The next screen will be the Personalize Screen, where you provide information about the Organization that this Windows Server will operate under its network. In this article, this server will operate under my personal organization which is “Al-Ankar Organization”. Click on Next when you finish feeding up the required information.

23. In the next screen you need to provide the Windows Server 2003 Product Key, this key can be found in the back of the Windows CD Cover or provided by separate Licensing Certificate by the Media and Licensing Provider. Click on Next when you finish from typing in the Product Key.

24.The Next Screen, In the Licensing Modes dialog box, selects the appropriate licensing mode for your organization, and then click Next. If you are not sure, just keep the default and click on Next.

25. In the Computer Name and Administrator Password dialog box, type the new computer name in the computer name box, and choose a password for the “Administrator” Local Account, and then click Next.

26. In the Date and Time Settings dialog box, correct the current date and time if necessary based on your country or region date and time, and then click Next.

27. Now, Windows will start configuring the server based on the information you provided in the previous screens.

Now, the Windows Setup will start the networking components installation and configuration on the server. The first networking configuration screen will be the TCP/IP Configuration of the Server Network Card. If you know the IP Address that this server will host, then click on custom settings and type in the IP Configuration (IP Address, Subnet Mask, Gateway, Primary DNS, Secondary DNS, etc). if you don’t have such information, then keep the default selection which is “Typical Settings” and click on Next.
28. The Next Networking Configuration Screen will be “Workgroup or Computer Domain”. Now, if this server is the first Server under your network then you don’t have a domain to join this server to, so keep the default selection which is “Workgroup” and keep the name of this workgroup as the default suggested name which is “Workgroup” and click on next. If you already configured your TCP/IP Settings or you have already Domain under your Network and you have a DHCP Server that leases IP’s to your computers, and you want to join this new server under your existing domain, then you can specify your domain by clicking on “Yes, make this computer a member of the following Domain:” and then specify the domain that you want to join this new server to.

29. Now, Windows will configuration the Networking components based on your selection on the Networking Configuration screens shown above.

30. The Windows Setup will start completing configuration and installation of Windows on the Server, and when it will finish, it will restart automatically and takes you to the new installed Windows Server 2003 Logon Screen to start working and browsing the new Server features.

31. Finally, this the Logon Screen that you will get when you restart the server after it finishes the installation of your Windows Server 2003 Server.

32. Then you can click on “Ctrl-Alt-Del” on your keyboard, and provide the logon credential specified during the setup, which are:

User: Administrator
Password: Pass@word1

33. Now, you need to connect this server to the internet and update it with the latest Security Patches and Service Packs.

                              Overview of windows 7 with installation 

Windows 7 is the latest release of the Windows series of operating systems by Microsoft. It can be used on a range of personal computers like desktops, laptops, and notebooks. 

This guide will help you to perform a custom installation or clean installation, which means installing a new Windows 7 operating system on a computer. 

System Requirements: 

Before installing Windows 7 on your computer, ensure that your computer has:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Clean Installation Instructions: 

Insert the Windows 7 setup DVD into the disk drive. The Windows setup will automatically start the installation. If your computer does not start with the Windows 7 Setup DVD, then make the required changes in your BIOS and make your CD/DVD drive the primary boot device. 

Select the language that you want to use during the installation process.

Next, click the Install Now button to initiate the installation. The Setup transfers some temporary files from the DVD to your computer. The Please read the license terms page appears. Select the I accept the license terms check box.

Select the Custom (advanced) install option.

Select the hard disk drive or partition on which you want to install Windows 7.

Setup copies the program files to your system.

Toward the end of the installation process, your system restarts several times, and then Setup updates the registry settings. Next, Windows prompts you to perform some post-installation tasks, like selecting the user name and the computer name.

Set the system password for your user account and enter a hint for the password.

Type the activation key.

Set the date and time.

Select the appropriate network settings and create a group depending on the type of Network you have chosen.

Your Windows 7 installation is ready for use.

Dual Booting Windows 7 with Windows Vista: 

To install Windows 7 on a computer in dual boot mode, which is already running Windows Vista, follow these steps: 

If you need to create a new partition on your system’s hard disk to accommodate the new operating system (Windows 7), follow these steps:

1) In Windows Vista, click Start, right-click My Computer, and click Manage.
2) Click Disk Management in the left pane. You can now view the current partitioning scheme on your system. 


3) Right-click on the partition that you want to resize. The screen shows information on the capacity of the drive. In addition, it provides you the option to enter the amount you'd like to “shrink” your partition by. The recommended minimum partition size for Windows 7 is 16GB. Select 16GB or a larger size for your partition, and then click Shrink Volume. 



You can now see the unallocated space on your hard disk with the capacity you specified, situated just after your now resized original partition. 

4) Right-click the unallocated volume, select New Simple Volume, and assign it a drive letter.
5) Perform Quick format of the new volume using the NTFS file system and the default allocation unit size. The volume label is optional, but you can assign it the label - Windows 7, which will help you to recognize the partition during installation process. 

After creating the partition, perform clean installation of Windows 7 by following procedure given earlier in this guide. After the installation process is complete, you’ll have a new entry for Windows 7 on your boot screen when you first start-up your computer. On the boot screen, choose the Operating System with which you want to start your computer. Windows 7 can also be dual booted with Windows XP, or you can triple boot your system with Windows7, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Installing Windows 7 From a USB Drive: 

For this installation, you’ll require the following:

• USB Drive (minimum 4 GB)
• Windows 7 installation files

Follow these steps to convert your USB drive into a bootable USB drive, which you can then use for Windows 7 installation:

1. Connect the USB drive. Note that the USB drive should not have any data. If it has any data, move your data to some other location.
2. Click Start, then click All Programs, and then click Accessories.
3. Right-click CMD, and select Run as administrator.
4. At the command prompt, type the following commands, as shown below:
   
   DISKPART
   LIST DISK (This command will list the disk numbers for all the hard disk drives and USB drives on your system.)
   SELECT DISK 2 (As system has listed the USB drive as DISK 2)
   CLEAN
   CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
   ACTIVE
   FORMAT FS=NTFS (This process will take some time to complete)
   ASSIGN
   EXIT
   
   
5. Insert your Windows7 DVD into the DVD drive and check the drive letter of the DVD drive. Suppose the drive letter is D. Type the following command at the command prompt:
   
   D: CD BOOT (where D is the drive letter for DVD)
   CD BOOT
   
6. Next, type the following command at the command prompt:
   
   BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 F: (where F is the drive letter for the USB drive.)
   
7. Copy the contents of the Windows 7 installation DVD to the USB drive.

The USB drive is now ready for installation. You will need to change the BIOS to boot from the USB drive. To perform an installation using the USB drive, follow the procedure for clean installation of Windows 7 as given earlier in this guide. 

Installing Windows 7 Using Windows Deployment Services: 

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is the updated and redesigned version of Remote Installation Services (RIS). With WDS you can install Windows operating systems over the network. This eliminates the need to install Windows on individual computers using the local CD drive or DVD drive. WDS uses the Pre-Boot Execution environment (PXE) or Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) service on the host computer to boot from the WDS Server. 

You need to install the WDS service on the computer that you want to use as a WDS Server. Here we’ll install and configure this service on Windows Server 2008. On the WDS Server PXE and TFTP servers are required for network booting of the client on which installation is to be done. Follow these steps to install WDS on Windows Server 2008: 

1. Open Server Manager, click Add Roles and then click Next.
2. On the Select Server Roles screen, select Windows Deployment Services, and then click Next.




3. On the Role Services screen, select Deployment Server and Transport Server, then click Next and then clickInstall.
   
   
4. Next, configure the PXE Server settings. Select Respond to all (known and unknown) client computers and then click Finish. Once a computer is linked to a computer account object in AD DS, the computer is considered “prestaged” or "known". For security reasons, you may opt to select PXE to only respond to known computers, or if you make the selection used in our instructions, you may want to click the For unknown clients, notify administrator and respond after approval checkbox.
   
   

Adding a Boot image on the WDS Server:
Boot images are Windows images that are used to boot a client computer, and install an operating system on the computer. To add a boot image on the WDS Server, perform these steps:

1. Click Start, then click Administrative Tools, and then click Windows Deployment Services.
2. Open the Windows Deployment Services management console.
3. Right-click the Boot Images node and then click Add Boot Image.
   
   
4. Click Browse to locate the boot image you want to add. Select Boot.wim from the /sources folder on the Windows 7 installation DVD.
   
   

Adding an Install Image on the WDS Server:

1. Click Start, then click Administrative Tools, and then click Windows Deployment Services.
2. Open the Windows Deployment Services management console.
3. Right-click the Install Images node and then click Add Install Image.
   
   
4. Specify a name for the image group and then click Next.
   
   
5. Click Browse to locate the default install image (Install.wim), which is located in the \Sources folder of the product DVD, and then click Open.
6. Enter a name and click Save.
7. Next select Upload image to WDS Server.
8. Repeat the process if you want to add more than one Install Image to your WDS Server. You must add at least one boot image and one install image before you will be able to boot to the Windows Deployment Services server and install an image.

Installing From an Install Image:
After you have at least one boot and one install image on the server, you can deploy an install image assuming you meet the following requirements:

• The client computer must be capable of performing a PXE boot.
• Your user account must be a member of the Domain Users group.
• The client computer must have at least 512 MB of RAM, which is the minimum amount of RAM for using Windows PE.
• The client must meet the system requirements for the operating system of the install image.

To perform a PXE boot on a computer to install an image, use the following procedure.

1. Configure the BIOS of the computer to enable PXE booting, and set the boot order so that it is booting from the network first.
2. Restart the computer, and when prompted, press F12 to start the network boot.
3. Select the appropriate boot image from the boot menu. (This boot image selection menu will be available only if you have two or more boot images on the server.)
4. Follow the instructions in the Windows Deployment Services user interface.
5. When the installation is completed, the computer will restart and Setup will continue as it would in a regular clean installation.