Windows Server 2016

How to install telnet client on Windows Server 2016 or 2012

November 28, 2018 by Paulie Leave a Comment

Windows Server does not install Telnet by default, it’s such a tiny executable I cannot understand why it is left out by default. however it is very easy to enable telnet on Windows Server 2016 or 2012. If you do not have telnet installed you will see this message from the command line:

Image showing telnet not available in Windows Server — Telnet is not recognized as an internal or external command.

Install Telnet Client on Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2012 using the command line

The command line is the quickest way of installing the telnet client, very simply just type:

dism /online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:TelnetClient

Install Telnet Client on Windows Server 2016 using Server Manager

You can use Server Manager to install the telnet client, but it is a much longer process than doing it via the command line, here is a short video of the correct options to select.

Check that Telnet is installed

To check if your installation was successful, just go into a command prompt and type “telnet” and you should come to the interactive telnet prompt, like this:

How to change network profile on Windows Server 2016

November 27, 2018 by Paulie Leave a Comment

Under some circumstances Windows Server will automatically select a network profile for you which does not match your needs. It’s not very clear how to change it between public and private within the network and sharing center. In my opinion the easiest way is to use Windows Powershell to change network profile on Windows Server 2016.

Here is how to change the profile from public to private for your network connection on Windows Server 2016. There are several methods of doing this but I find the GUI method to be very unclear. So here I am going to document how to change the network profile using Powershell.

How to change network profile on Windows Server 2016 to Private using Powershell

Open Powershell
Type Get-NetConnectionProfile
If you have only one network connection you can change the profile to private by typing:
```
Get-NetConnectionProfile | Set-NetConnectionProfile -NetworkCategory Private
```
If you have multiple network interfaces and would like to change a specific adapter use the Interface Index Property like this:
```
Set-NetConnectionProfile -InterfaceIndex 3 -NetworkCategory Private
```
You can then verify the change has taken place by running Get-NetConnectionProfile again:

Obviously you can also use this method to switch back to a public profile:

Switch to public network profile

Set-NetConnectionProfile -InterfaceIndex 3 -NetworkCategory Public

Switch to domain network profile

You cannot use this method to switch to a domain profile because that happens automatically.

Disable Server Manager when logging in to Windows Server 2016

November 8, 2018 by Paulie Leave a Comment

By default, when logging in to Windows Server 2016, Server Manager automatically starts with your session. I find it really annoying. Here are three ways to disable automatic startup of Server Manager:

Method One: Disable Server Manager using server manager properties.

Within Server Manager click on manage and then “Server Management Properties”:
Within Server Manager Properties, tick the box that says “Do not start Server Manager automatically at logon”:

Method Two: Use Group Policy Editor (Will change the setting for all users)

Run gpedit.msc to edit the policy of the local machine or domain wide Group Policy Management Console
Go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Server Manager:

Method Three: Disable Server Manager from Task Scheduler

Open Task Scheduler
In the left hand navigation pane, go to Task Scheduler Library -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Server Manager
Right Click on the “ServerManager” Task and choose disable:

Method Four: Use PowerShell to disable the Server Manager Scheduled Task

Run Windows PowerShell
Enter the command:

Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName ServerManager | Disable-ScheduledTask -Verbose

You should see output like this:

So many methods to achieve the same result. Depending on how many servers you are looking after will determine which is the best option for you. I hope this helps.

How to find the startup folder on Windows Server 2012 or 2016

October 18, 2017 by Paulie 1 Comment

It’s always been simple to find the startup folder in most versions of Windows to configure an application to start automatically when a user logs in.

Here is how to find the startup folder on Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2016

Right Click on the start menu and choose run
Type “shell:startup” and click ok.
Then the startup folder will appear and you can drop shortcuts or applications into it.

To find the common startup folder for all users

Right click on the start menu and choose run
Type “shell:common startup” and click ok.

Easy but quite well hidden.

How to enable Flash Player on Windows Server 2016

October 17, 2017 by Paulie 3 Comments

Windows Server 2016 does not come with Flash Player installed by default. But it can be installed very easily, here is how to do it:

How to install Flash Player on Windows Server 2016

Copy and paste the below command into a command prompt:

dism /online /add-package /packagepath:"C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\Adobe-Flash-For-Windows-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.14393.0.mum"

You should get output like the following if you had a successful installation:
You can verify if the installation was successful by visiting:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html
you should be able to see that Flash Player shows as installed and detected as per the following:

This procedure is significantly different from how the same task was done in Windows Server 2012. The instructions for installing Flash Player on Server 2012 are here.