The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation server 2008 r2

When I install Server 2008 R2 I have came across a weird problem that will prevent me from running any MSI installation program even though I am an administrator on the box.

The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation

Of course, I haven't set any policies to prevent this but I found the following registry key which will override this setting. Apparently by default the policy with R2 is to disable all installs of MSI's - fairly draconian but better than the default I guess:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer

REG_DWORD

DisableMSI set to 0

Changing the HAL from Multiprocessor to Single processor after P2V conversion

1. Before making any changes to the VM, Create a Snapshot in Virtual Center.
2. Right click on the VM you want the Snapshot for and go to Snapshot
3.
4. Click Take Snapshot
5.
6. Name it and click OK
7.
8. Snapshot will create
9.
10. RDP or Console into the Server and go to Device Manager
11. For Windows Server 2003, install the following hotfix. It does not require a reboot. This hotfix allows you to downgrade to Uniprocessor. WindowsServer2003-KB923425-v2-x86-ENU.exe
12. Expand the Computer tab to see what HAL is loaded
13.
14. In this case, this server used to have 2 processors when it was in its physical form. This needs to be changed. To do so, Right click on ACPI Multiprocessor PC and choose Properties
15.
16. Click the Driver tab
17.
18. Click Update Driver
19.
20. Click Next
21.
22. Choose Display driver so I can choose and click Next
23. It will show you this screen
24.
25. Choose “Show all hardware of this device class”
26.
27. Choose ACPI Uniprocessor PC and click Next
28. You will be warned about changing this driver, but don’t worry, if it fails, we can revert from the Snapshot we took!
29.
30. Click Yes to continue
31.
32. Click Next
33.
34. Click Finish
35. Click Close
36. You will be asked to reboot the computer. Here is where we will find out if it boots cleanly!
37.
38. If the Computer reboots cleanly and everything seems to work, clean up the Snapshot you took. Verify in Device Manager that the HAL has changed. This should really improve the VM’s performance!
39. To cleanup the SnapShot, Open Snapshot Manager
40.

How to get the CPU utilization of remote machine from command prompt

This command is very useful if you don't want waste time on logging and checking just for CPU Utilization.Run the below command from your local machine and replace host name with your remote server name in below command.

C:\typeperf "\\Hostname\processor(_Total)\% Processor Time"

How to get Remote Server Serial Number

just you need to remember one command is as follow and that you need to run from your command line...

C:\wmic /node:servername bios get serialnumber