Upgrading Server 2016 to 2019

Just before the end of February, my workstation's RAID 10 decided that it would be fun if I lost 2 drives on the same mirror.  So thankfully I had my OS on an SSD which was running but I did end up losing all my data but none of it was essential and it is pretty hard to backup 8tb.

So now that I'm more/less starting from scratch I thought it would be a great time to try an in-place upgrade of server 2016 to 2019!  HOW EXCITING!  I do have some software I will running on my C: including SQL server so it will be interesting to see what still works after the upgrade.  Now that I have some new drives and I can now setup a backup solution for some of my dev work!

Following the guide from microsoft.  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/upgrade/upgrade-2016-to-2019

I saved the info they requested to a network drive and a flash drive.

open the cmd prompt and cd to c:\Windows\system32, and then type systeminfo.exe.

Results from running systeminfo.exe.

Host Name:                 "MY WORKSTATION"
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Standard
OS Version:                10.0.14393 N/A Build 14393
OS Manufacturer:           Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration:          Standalone Server
OS Build Type:             Multiprocessor Free
Registered Owner:          Windows User
Registered Organization:
Product ID:                xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Original Install Date:     2018-06-18, 6:36:57 AM
System Boot Time:          2020-02-26, 9:58:13 AM
System Manufacturer:       COMPUTER INC.
System Model:              WORKSTATION
System Type:               x64-based PC
Processor(s):              2 Processor(s) Installed.
                           [01]:  ~1200 Mhz
                           [02]:  ~1200 Mhz
BIOS Version:              American Megatrends Inc.
Windows Directory:         C:\Windows
System Directory:          C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device:               \Device\HarddiskVolume4
System Locale:             en-ca;English (Canada)
Input Locale:              en-us;English (United States)
Time Zone:                 (UTC-07:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada)
Total Physical Memory:     130,958 MB
Available Physical Memory: 115,100 MB
Virtual Memory: Max Size:  150,414 MB
Virtual Memory: Available: 132,449 MB
Virtual Memory: In Use:    17,965 MB
Page File Location(s):     C:\pagefile.sys
Domain:                    "MY DOMAIN"
Logon Server:              \\LoginServer
Hotfix(s):                 14 Hotfix(s) Installed.
                           [01]: KB3192137
                           [02]: KB4091664
                           [03]: KB4093137
                           [04]: KB4132216
                           [05]: KB4465659
                           [06]: KB4485447
                           [07]: KB4498947
                           [08]: KB4503537
                           [09]: KB4509091
                           [10]: KB4512574
                           [11]: KB4520724
                           [12]: KB4521858
                           [13]: KB4524244
                           [14]: KB4537764

NETWORK INFORMATION Gets listed with all details about your networks connected, such as VLAN Tags, IPs, etc

Hyper-V Requirements:      A hypervisor has been detected. Features required for Hyper-V will not be displayed.

Run and save the information from ipconfig /all

RESULTS FROM IPCONFIG

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : "My Workstation"
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : Domain1
                                       Domain2

All you networking information gets listed here starting with your default NETWORK and it lists all vlan tags, mac addresses, much as you would expect from the
"ipconfig /all" command.

Record 2 registry key entries.   BuildLabEx (version) and EditionID (edition)

I did a Registry Keys Export for a Backup and a screen shot for reference

I saved the upgrade info to a text file on the flash drive along with a screen shot of the registry and an export of the current version key.

I create upgrade media using rufus, then ran the installer as an administrator

NOTE:  You will need your server key when you upgrade

First it will check for updates, if there are none it will move on

then it will check and see if your ready to install, checking for enough disk space etc.  Here is where you will be asked for your product key

Then you will need to select your version of server in this case I'm picking (Desktop Experience)

Accept the notices and license terms

You will be asked what you want to keep, I'm going to just keep everything as is since I need to redo everything anyway.

Then it will do a check to see if there is any kind of issue in the way of the upgrade.

 Then it will ask you to install windows

I started this process at 2:30 pm and to get to 75% took about an hour and a half so it really does take it's sweet time.  So I would plan for a minimum outage of about 3 hours.  The system seemed to have taken the upgrade just fine however I was unable to connect to the server using RDP and I lost access to some unauthenticated network shares. Though I really should setup some security on this network share it is something I am not able to arbitrarily do at the moment as others require access to this share. 

So to fix this problem; you need to edit a registry entry "AllowInsecureGuestAuth"

located here (you can copy and paste the path into regedit):

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters

The update change the REG_DWORD to 0

AllowInsecureGuestAuth Value after upgrade

You need to change the value to 1 if you want to be able to access unauthenticated shares.

Change the REG_DWORD to 1 to allow access to unauthenticated shares

you can read the reference link below with the details.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4046019/guest-access-in-smb2-disabled-by-default-in-windows-10-and-windows-ser

Microsoft is defaulting on the side of security which I completely applaud them for; however I do have to re-enable unauthenticated access.  

It was also shortly after fixing my network share issue I noticed some issues with most of my virtual networks with most of my networks showing an error.

Most networks no longer work after upgrade.

After trying serveral times to fix the issue with updating drivers, rebooting, system scans, etc I gave up and decided that my in-place upgrade wasn't an in-place upgrade.  So I formatted my OS drive and did a clean install.

After doing a clean install of Server 2019, setting up the dual port nic into a teamed interface I still lost network connectivity after installing the Hyper-V roll.  This happened after I reinstalled another 2 times.  What I didn't realize even looking though forums this issue was hard to find a resolution to.  The only solution that worked for me was to follow this process I found on Microsoft Technet

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/5906152c-1f22-449a-b223-15c4a3e5eb36/2019-hyperv-virtual-switch-error?forum=winserverhyperv

1. I had to remove Hyper-V role
2. Restart
3. Run  netcfg -d in a privileged powershell console
4. I made sure I setup all my teamed networks after this
5. Restart 
6. Install Hyper-v role

This was what fixed my network issue in server 2019.  After running the netcfg -d command, and re-installing the hyper-v roll my virtual switches came back without an issue.  This network issue after installing the Hyper-V roll also occurred when I had set up the server on a regular network interface (NOT TEAMED).  This would not be good if I had to keep the virtual machines running but at least I would be able to export them and re-import them.  This is compelling me to try and do a mockup in place upgrade; even though this one went sideways I think I can come up with a process to do it.

SNMP and Network Printing in Windows

SNMP can be pretty useful, it is used for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks.  It allows you to get information about a device such as a printer.  Why do I bring this up because if you not careful, it can cause your windows printers to appear offline depending on how your printer driver is configured.

Now when we setup printers we don't deviate to far from the defaults if at all.  However because we have a number of printers that are under contract and to automate the submission of the use count we were asked to install a piece of software called FMAUDIT.  Now the setup of the software was really easy but you don't get to control any of the settings until after you've installed the software.  By then it has scanned your network, I would prefer to have it ask me to scan the network while it is install or if I would prefer to add the network later (forewarning to anyone installing the software).  The software uses SNMP to scan the network and add all printers using the SNMP community name "scanme1".  It added all my printers with "scanme1" to it's database, So I decided to change the SNMP of our contract printers to something else lets call it "scanme2".  When I did that the software got the printers and did what it needs to do.  However the Windows printservers suddenly put the printers offline because the driver is using SNMP to talk to the printer.

To view this go to Printer Properties -> Ports -> Configure Ports

Printer Properties Dialog Box

and in the configure ports dialog box you have the option of enabling or disabling SNMP Status and if you have it on but the community name is not correct the printer shows as offline (Which makes total sense).

SNMP Location in the Configure Driver

As you can see below the image is showing that the printer JLL-Toshiba-Copier is offline.

SNMP Community name mismatch causes a printer to show up offline

So you have two options for fixing this issue.

1. Make sure that the SNMP community name in the driver is set to the same as the printer 
2. disable the SNMP status for the windows driver.  

It is pretty useful to have so I just changed the name from SCANME1 to SCANME2, and the printer came back with no problem.  Remember by default windows enables SNMP lookup so do keep that in mind.

Making sure the community name is the same or disabling SNMP in the driver will bring the printer back online.

Renaming an Windows Essentials Server

I have a few servers setup with server essentials because I have some software I wanted to run on Windows server but couldn't use full server and Windows 7 and 10 were not desirable.  I recently needed to change the name on one of these servers but it was a little tricky.  As shown below the server is currently named SIP

The server to be renamed

Unfortunately, when we get the item's properties, the name and domain change is not available. 

Name and Domain change is not available.

 Edit the registry and go to the entry HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CertSvc

Edit the registry

 You can export the key if to back it up, I have found it is not necessary.

Export the CertSvc

 Delete the CertSvc registry

Delete the CertSvc registry entry.

Once you remove the key and reboot you will then be able to change the name of the system.

Now able to rename the server

When you change the computer name you will see this warning.  If you are using AD users be careful, It did not affect the server I was using but just be mindful.

Essentials warring on renaming

After you change the name and reboot your computer name will be changed.

Name Change

After changing the name and rebooting the system we can see that our system name is changed and we can still login to the system despite the warning.

System renaming is complete

You can see my full 8 minute video on how to do this on my YouTube page https://youtu.be/DP76WpqlUFo


References
https://winadminnotes.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/renaming-the-windows-server-essentials/