Install Windows Server 2003 R2 

Today section three of my series on how to prepare a SharePoint Server 2007 environment. A 'reminder' project for myself (and all others who would like to do the same thing) to get all the steps documented for later use. Here we go again... the next step, Install Windows Server 2003 R2.

Capture Installation Disk

In case you have the availability of installation disks as .ISO images, capture the image to Virtual PC. You can also share your CD/DVD player to Virtual PC if you want to use the ‘real’ software distributions or use shared folders if your installation files are on a drive location.

Capture the image

Here you see the captured image in Virtual PC

Reboot

Now your image is attached you can Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot your Virtual PC to start the image. Press a key to ‘boot from CD/DVD’ after rebooting.

Installation Windows Server 2003 Disk 1

After rebooting and launching the image your Windows Server 2003 installation is kicked in.

Press Enter to set up Windows now.

Press F8 to agree with the Windows Licensing Agreement.

Disk options

Press ENTER to install and set up Windows on the selected item.

Press ENTER to continue and format the partition using the NTFS file system.

Setup is formatting …

And copying files…

And installing …

Regional Settings

Change your Regional and Language options according to your preferences.

As I’m in the Netherlands I selected to set the Regional Options to Dutch (Netherlands) and the Location to the Netherlands too…

I always prefer to have the input language set to the default language:

English (United States) – US

Change this to your own liking.

Personalize Your Software and Licenses

Enter your Name and Organization to personalize your software.

Enter your Product Key

Select the licensing mode you want to use. In my test environment Per Server will do.

Give your VPC a name and admin account

Enter the Computer name you want to use for this VPC and enter an Administrator password twice, once to conform your password.

Date and Time Settings

Adjust your date and time settings and select the Time Zone from the list box.

Installing ….

Networking Settings

Accept typical settings for your Networking Settings for now …

Accept the WORKGROUP setting (for now, as we are planning to make the box an Active Directory domain later)

Reboot your VPC …

The system is Personalizing…

Installation Windows Server 2003 Disk 2

And the installation continues with Disk 2

Capture the image for Disk 2 …

And continue… The installation wizard automatically kicks in for Disk 2.

And installing …

And installing …

Click the Finish button to complete the Windows Server 2003 R2 Setup

Security Updates and patches

Click Update this server to download and install the latest security updates.

Click Install to accept the security warning …

Click OK to accept (if you don’t want this message to show up next time, check the check box in the dialog) and continue…

Click Install Now to continue …

Select Custom and continue …

Install Updates …

Click I Accept to accept the EULA …

Installing …

And Installing …

Done installing all updates (for now, there will be more later on when you install more software)

Done ... Next Step, Optimizing your Virtual PC.