Server 2012 - No User Interface Available

On one fine day when I was busy with one of my project, one of my collegue tapped my shoulder, a bit panicking.

He : Heiry, take a look at this...

Me : Dude, what on earth have you done? (serious face)

He : I dont know man, I uninstalled .Net Fx 4.5, reboot the machine and this happened

Me : Dude, What on earth was the reason you uninstalled .Net Fx 4.5?

He : Well, I thought ....

Me : (Evil Smile)

So here is the thing. When we uninstalling .Net Fx 4.5, those related features would be uninstalled as well, including a feature called User Interfaces and Infrastructure. Please refer to here.

There are 2 ways to get it done - locally or remotely. For the purpose of this post, I will do it remotely from another Windows Server 2012 member server.



Issues :

Unable to view GUI in Server 2012.

Troubleshooting :

it is straight forward, GUI is disabled, RDP to the server, the only screen one can see is :

Resolution :

1.  RDP to another Server 2012 member server.
   
   
2.  Launch Server Manager, and click at Add other servers to manage
   
   
   
   
   
3. Put the target server name at Name (CN) column, and press Find Now. Once the target server appeared in the table, click at the server name and press the arrow button marked with green box as below. The target server will appeared in the right column.
   
   
4. Then, click kat Manage | Add Roles and Feature

   

   
   

   
   
5. Ensure to choose Select a server from the server pool, and choose the target server. Press Next.
   
   
6. At Server Roles option, skip it by pressing Next
   
   
7. At Feature option, enable a feature called User Interface and Infrastructure. Press Next.
   
   
   
8. Ensure all info are correct, and press Install to proceed.

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Windows Activation - KMS : Access Is Denied

There are 2 types of Windows Activation - KMS and MAK. However, for this post, I won't be discussing on what are those or their differences, as this post is to discuss an error in regards to KMS implementation. 

Issues :

The following error has occurred. Please resolve the error and try again.

Description :

Access is denied

Troubleshooting 

1.  Used multiple IDs (Domain Admins as well as Local Admins), however issue stll persist. Thus, it is safe to rule out User ID privilege from the root cause. 
2. UAC is enabled.

Resolution :

1.  Go to Volume Activation Tools again, but right click at it and choose Run as Administrator (not Pin to taskbar, sorry for that)
   
   
   
   
   
2. Browse to your server name,and press Next. Punch in alternative credential if needed.
   
   
   
   
   
3.  If you need to activate your KMS, get it activated. In this case, I already activated my KMS, so I will skip to Configuration.
   
   
   
   
   
4.  Once all steps above completed, there hould not be any issue in accessing to the Configuration, "Access Denied" error should not appear anymore.
   

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Troubleshoting Account ID Locked in Windows AD Domain Environment

I am pretty sure this issue occurred to almost all Wintel or Service Desk Engineers - User came to us, make a report saying that his or her ID was locked, and he or she did not know why (or did they?).

Nevertheless, I have compiled on how I checked and resolved this issue in my environment, hopefully it will help yours too.

Issues :

Troubleshooting Account Locked



Troubleshooting 

1.  Download Account Lockout and Management Tools from here.
   
   
2. Get it extracted.
   
   
   
3. Launch LockoutStatus.exe
   
   
   
4. Go to File | Select Target...
   
   
   
5. Put in target user name, domain, and if needed alternate domain admin credential. Press OK once done.
   
   
   
6. Collecting data...
   

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