Postinstallation

After you've configured server roles and installed additional components, you might be ready to call it a day. Don't do this yet because you should first perform a few final postinstallation procedures:

  • Check devices Use Device Manager as discussed in the section entitled "Obtaining Hardware Device Information", to look for undetected or malfunctioning hardware components. If you find problems, you might need to download and install updated drivers for the computer—you can download from another system and then transfer the files to the new server using a floppy disk or by burning the files to a CDROM. If you removed any system hardware prior to installation, you might want to add it back in and then check again for conflicts and issues that must be corrected. You aren't finished with Device Manager until every piece of hardware is working properly.

  • Check the TCP/IP configuration Use the Local Area Network Connection Properties dialog box to check the TCP/IP configuration. Ensure the configuration is correct and that any additional settings are applied as necessary for the network. Test TCP/IP networking from the command line using PING or TRACERT and in the Windows operating system by trying to browse the network. See Chapter 24 for details.

  • Check event logs Use Event Viewer to check the Windows event logs. Any startup warnings or errors will be written to the logs. See Chapter 15, for details.

  • Check disk partitioning Use the Computer Management console to check and finalize the disk partitions. Often, you must create the server's application partition or configure software RAID. See Chapter 19, for details.

  • Optimize system configuration Follow the techniques discussed in Chapter 10 and Chapter 12, for tuning the operating system. For example, you might need to change the display settings, virtual memory pagefile usage, or the Server service configuration. You might also need to add local group and user accounts to the server per standard IT procedures.

  • Reboot for good measure Once you've configured the server and optimized its settings, perform a final reboot to ensure that (1) the server starts, (2) all the server services start, and (3) no other errors occur. You should reboot even if the changes you made don't require it—better to find out about problems now rather than at 3 A.M. on a Saturday night.

  • Prepare backup and recovery You're almost done, but not quite. Don't forget about creating an automated recovery disk for the server. You might also want to perform a full backup. For details on backing up servers and creating recovery disks, see Chapter 41.

Once these procedures are completed, you should have a server that is ready (or nearly ready) for its role in a production environment. For certain, quite a bit of extra work is involved beyond installing the operating system, but these postinstallation procedures are not only important, they're essential to ensuring the server performs as well as can be expected. As a final note, don't make the server available to users until any and all additional needed components, services, and applications are installed on it. The installation of these additional components, services, and applications could require one or more reboots or might require several time periods in which users are blocked from accessing the server or are requested not to connect to it. Remember, from the users' perspective, it's usually better to not have a resource than to be given one and then have it taken away (even temporarily). Finalize the server, then deploy it, and you'll have happier users.

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