Windows Server 2019 installation summary (and VS 2019 Build Tool)

The Essentials: After Windows Server 2019 Evaluation Installed

Try the evaluation version

Windows Server 2019 allows a 180-day trial. After the trial expires, it can be reset 5 times to extend the evaluation period, so this is a relatively rare basic tool.

Windows Server trial official website: here

Extend trial period

The command to extend the trial period is:

slmgr.vbs -rearm

Windows Server 2019 Evaluation Keys:

The Product Keys already known for evaluation are as follows:

Windows Server 2019 Standard

N69G4-B89J2-4G8F4-WWYCC-J464C

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter

WMDGN-G9PQG-XVVXX-R3X43-63DFG

Version comparison: Core and Desktop Experience

There are multiple versions of Windows Server 2019:

The first is the division of major versions:

Data Center，
Standard，
Essentials, (only Desktop Experience small version)

In addition to the major version, there is also a major version of Hyper-V Server 2019, which only contains the minor version of Server Core), not to mention it.

Then the small version is divided into Server Core and With Desktop Exxpirience. The difference lies in whether there is a GUI environment.

Server Core

For Server Core, there is only one command line box interface:

However, the so-called no GUI just means that there is no GUI management tool (such as the start menu, various control panel elements, etc.). In fact, it still allows you to start the Desktop app from the command line interface. For example, Visual Studio 2019 Build Tool will be started and run in a separate window interface:

The installation management interface will come out later.

In Server Core, at least these applications are incompatible:

Microsoft Server Virtual Machine Manager 2019 (SCVMM)
System Center Data Protection Manager 2019
Sharepoint Server 2019
Project Server 2019

In addition, at least these system components are incompatible: Windows Tiff IFilter, Internet Printing Client, RAS Connection Manager Kit, Simple TCP/IP Services, TFTP Client, Windows Search Service, XPS Viewer, etc.

It can be seen that the incompatible things have almost nothing to do with ordinary people.

In addition, you can basically think of Core as a lighter version. Its installed size is about 5.1GB, which is relatively rare.

Desktop Experience

The small version of Desktop Experience has a complete GUI interface. You can use the start menu to perform GUI operations like Windows 11 or Windows NT. Of course, you can also open a command line prompt to do work.

Here is a reference drawing of the interface:

Windows Server 2019 with Desktop Experience — The Classic Look (e.g. Windows 10 1809)

The screenshots during the installation process are as follows:

summary

So the official name can be seen in the installation interface of the Windows Server 2019 ISO, usually like this:

Windows Server 2019 Standard (Desktop Experience)
Windows Server 2019 Standard

So 2 is the Server Core version.

Disk size occupied

Server Core is a more lightweight version, and its installed size is about 5.1GB.

For reference, a normal Windows 20H2 takes about 20GB after installation, and the installed size of a Windows Server 2019 Standard (Desktop Expirience) is about 8.6~9.3GB.

Version comparison

The official comparison table is here:

Comparison of Standard and Datacenter editions Windows Server 2019 - Microsoft Docs

If you think it is too long, then look here first:

Windows Server 2019 Licensing & Pricing - Microsoft

Summary after installation

Check the server IP address

You can use ipconfig or ipconfig /all

Enable Remote Desktop on Server Core

Enable remote desktop on Server Core

Following are the steps to enable remote desktop on Windows Server core.

Follow the steps below to enable remote desktop, applicable to Windows Server Core.

Start the Server Configuration Tool, login to your Windows Server (2016/2019) core. Type SConfig and press Enter.

You will find a list of options under Server Configuration. From the list, take a look at option 7 which is for Remote Desktop. Notice that Remote Desktop is currently Disabled

You will see that the sconfig command displays a list of options. Select item 7 in this option list, which is the remote desktop entry. This item should be "Disabled" by default.

Press 7 and hit enter. The next line that you see lets you Enable or Disable remote desktop. To enable the remote desktop, type E and press enter key.

Press the button 7 and press Enter ( Enter ). The next display line prompts you to enable or disable the remote desktop. To enable it, press the keys E and press Enter.

Now you see two options :- Now you see two options

Allow only clients running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (more secure) Only RDP clients with enhanced network authentication security enabled can connect and enter (more secure)
Allow clients running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure) Any RDP client can connect and enter (less secure)

Type 1 and press Enter. You get a confirmation box for enabling Remote Desktop. Click OK.

Press the buttons 1 and press Enter, you will see a confirmation dialog box, click the OK button to confirm it:

Now take a look at option 7, it shows Remote Desktop Enabled (more secure clients only).

Now look at option 7, it will show that the remote desktop has been enabled (Enabled all clients).

In the next step we will enable the firewall to allow the remote desktop. Type 15 which is an exit to command line.

Next, we need to allow remote desktop connections on the firewall. Press the button 1 5 and press Enter, that is, select option 15 to exit the sconfig menu interface and return to the command line.

Now type the below command and press enter key.

Now enter the following command and press Enter to run it:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="remote desktop" new enable=Yes

You get a line that reads Updated 3 rules.

It will allow the remote desktop connection to pass through.

Original: Enable Remote Desktop On Server Core - Prajwal Desai

Modify the hostname of the server

Also use the sconfig command, the second item is to modify the computer name (Computer Name).

Add operator account

If you do not want to log in as an Administrator, you need to add your own operator account. Still use the sconfig command and select item 3 (Add Local Administrator).

Enable file sharing

The following command can enable file sharing:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”File and Printer Sharing” new enable=Yes

Then you can connect to the Server Core through the manager share point:

# in macOS
open 'smb://server-core/admin$'
open 'smb://server-core/c$'

NET USE command

Net use | Microsoft Docs)

Simple way

The typical way to load Samba resources into the LAN is:

net use z: \\hz-pc\downloads password /user:hz

It can be deleted after use:

net use z: /delete

/savecred way

You can use /savecred to create a drive letter, so that there is no need to explicitly enter the password and user parts in the future.

net use z: \\hz-pc\downloads /savecred /persistent:yes

An example is as follows:

Command line format

There are several standard forms of the NET USE command:

net use [{<DeviceName> | *}] \
   [\\<ComputerName>\<ShareName>[\<volume>]] \
   [{<Password> | *}]] \
   [/user:[<DomainName>\]<UserName] >[/user:[<DottedDomainName>\]<UserName>] \
   [/user: [<UserName@DottedDomainName>] \
   [/savecred] [/smartcard] \
   [{/delete | /persistent:{yes | no}}]
net use [<DeviceName> [/home[{<Password> | *}] \
   [/delete:{yes | no}]]
net use [/persistent:{yes | no}]

Since we implicitly connect to a windows server or windows server core server remotely, the persistent form of the NET USE command is usually meaningless. When you need to use NET USE in this context, it is usually because we have pre-downloaded the installation disk on the download server in the LAN, so we need to link to the download server, and then install the Visual Studio 2019 Build Tool and so on.

Remote Desktop

RDP method

You can use the free RDP Client tool on macOS:

CoRD: Remote Desktop for Mac OS X or

Remote Desktop Manager Free

Note that Remote Desktop Manager Free requires you to register an account to use it for free, or you can simply buy a copy of its Enterprise License

If you are evaluating or managing Azure servers, you can use the remote management tools embedded in the Azure management interface.

VNC way

If you are using a Home Edition version such as Windows 11 (such as a notebook preset OEM), then the remote desktop service on these workstations cannot be activated, which is shameful-so at this time you need the VNC tool:

TightVNC: VNC-Compatible Free Remote Control / Remote Desktop Software

SSH way

You can also use the OpenSSH tool to connect to the server remotely via ssh:

Install OpenSSH | Microsoft Docs

other

When you initiate a remote management session from a Windows workstation, you can also use the Windows Admin Center tool, which is an official special tool from Microsoft.

Install Visual Studio 2019 Build Tool

Official website: Download Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac

You can simply think of Visual Studio 2019 Build Tool as a GUI-less version of Visual Studio.

Create offline installation package

refer to:

First download the vs_setup executable file on the official website, and then use such a command line to create an offline package:

vs_buildtools__2036376674.1537335944.exe --layout .\vs2019bt_offline  --lang en-US

Pay attention to the name of the vs_setup executable file you downloaded, and use it to replace the vs_buildtools__2036376674.1537335944.exe part.

Install

After downloading the offline package OK, you can connect to the offline package server through Samba file sharing on Server Core:

net use z: \\hz-pc\d

Then go to the subdirectory to initiate the installation process:

cd /d z:\downloads\vs.2019.build.tool\vs2019bt_offline
vs_setup.exe

Then check in the separate installation window and complete the installation.

Disk size

BT with C++ (with ATL and MFC) and .NET build tools installed requires approximately 17GB of disk space. So after we installed the VS2019BT tool on a Server Core, the entire disk space was about 22.2GB, which was very speechless.

This is a huge consumption, in every sense.

So I still admire the Windows C++ build server in GitHub Actions. Each push is accompanied by a download of the build server, startup, and scheduling of CI commands to build until it is destroyed. These processes

🔚

Write so much for the time being.