Sara Perrott - Windows Server 2022 & Powershell All-in-One For Dummies

I’m a traditionalist, so I recommend starting with Book 1, Chapter 1. This is where you find out about the new things that await you in Windows Server 2022. From there, it’s entirely up to you! You can read the book in order, or skip around, letting your curiosity be your guide.

One last note: I highly recommend that you create a test environment as you go through this book and experiment with different components of the Windows Server operating system. I try to call attention to potentially destructive procedures, but it’s your responsibility to ensure that you’re practicing in a safe environment, ideally not your production environment.

Book 1

1 Chapter 1: An Overview of Windows Server 2022 Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Seeing What’s New in Windows Server 2022 Deciding Which Windows Server 2022 Edition Is Right for You Walking the Walk: Windows Server 2022 User Experiences Seeing What Server Manager Has to Offer Windows Admin Center: Your New Best Friend Extending and Improving Your Datacenter

2 Chapter 2: Using Boot Diagnostics Accessing Boot Diagnostics Using Advanced Boot Options Performing a Memory Test Using the Command Prompt Working with Third-Party Boot Utilities

3 Chapter 3: Performing the Basic Installation Making Sure You Have What It Takes Performing a Clean Install Upgrading Windows Performing a Network Install with Windows Deployment Services

4 Chapter 4: Performing Initial Configuration Tasks Understanding Default Settings Getting an Overview of the Configuration Process Providing Computer Information Updating Windows Server 2022 Customizing Windows Server 2022 Configuring Startup Options with BCDEdit

Chapter 1

IN THIS CHAPTER

Getting an overview of the features new to Windows Server 2022

Making sense of the Windows Server 2022 editions

Looking at the different Windows Server 2022 user experiences

Recognizing the benefits of Server Manager

Working with the Windows Admin Center

Making your data center bigger and better

Windows Server 2022 is the latest version of Microsoft’s flagship server operating system. This chapter has something for everyone. If you’re already familiar with Windows Server, I discuss the new features that Windows Server 2022 brings to the table. If you haven’t worked with Microsoft Server operating systems much before, you’ll appreciate the information on the editions and user experiences that you can use, depending on your needs.

With each new version of Windows Server, Microsoft introduces new and innovative technologies to improve administration, add needed functionality, and improve security. Here are some of the new features in Windows Server 2022:

Secured-core server: These systems have special hardware that enables them to use advanced security features. Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 is a standard feature, for example, which can be used for a variety of things, including secure key storage and improved boot time protection from BitLocker. Microsoft also provides increased protections against firmware-level attacks and virtualization-based security (VBS).

Improvements to Domain Name System (DNS) security: DNS requests can now be made via Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), using an encrypted channel. This new feature is referred to as DNS-over-HTTPS, which is shortened to DoH. If you’re like me, you probably pictured Homer Simpson yelling “D’oh!”

Transport Layer Security (TLS): In Windows Server 2022, both HTTPS and TLS 1.3 are enabled by default to better protect your network and Internet activity. For more information on this feature, check out Book 5, Chapter 3.

Server Message Block (SMB) security: Windows Server 2022 brings several improvements for SMB security. SMB can now be used over the QUIC protocol instead of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). This allows you to take advantage of TLS 1.3 encryption. SMB Direct now supports encryption with little to no performance impact. Previously, if you enabled SMB encryption, direct data placement was disabled due to the impact to performance. Plus, traffic between storage clusters in Storage Spaces Direct can now be encrypted.

Azure hybrid capabilities: In Windows Server 2022, you have Azure Arc, which provides centralized management of servers, and Azure Automanage: Hotpatch, which allows for rebootless updates. I discuss these features a bit more toward the end of this chapter.

Windows Admin Center: Improvements have been made to Windows Admin Center to add support for the new secured-core server features.

Improved support for Windows Containers: Container image sizes have been greatly reduced, and increased support for Kubernetes has been added. I discuss these subjects in greater detail in Book 8.

Network performance: TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) performance have both been improved in Windows Server 2022.

Microsoft Edge browser: Microsoft Edge is now the browser of choice on Microsoft products. It has replaced Internet Explorer as the default browser in Windows Server 2022.

Storage improvements: Migrating data has been made simpler with improvements to the Storage Migration Service. Storage Spaces Direct has also gotten some love with two big improvements. The first new feature, user adjustable storage repair speed, allows users to specify how many resources should be allocated to repairing data or servicing active storage needs. The second new feature is the storage bus cache being available on non-clustered systems, which allows you to create tiered storage on a stand-alone server.

Windows Server 2022 comes in three editions: Essentials, Standard, and Datacenter. In the following sections, I walk you through each edition so you can determine which one is right for you.

The Essentials edition is ideal for small organizations (usually no more than 25 to 50 users). It provides enough basic functionality to do most jobs and is a cost-effective solution for small organizations. Features of the Essentials edition include the following:

Supports up to two CPU cores

Supports a maximum of 64GB of random access memory (RAM)

The Standard edition is ideal for environments with little to no virtualization or when used as a guest operating system. Features of the Standard edition include the following:

Up to two Hyper-V containers and unlimited Windows containers

HGS and Nano Server support

Storage Replica (with some limitations)