How to configure Windows 2008 VM to connect to the Internet

This guide is deigned to help you get a freshly installed Windows 2008 Web Edition virtual machine to connect to the Internet. While the focus of the guide is related to virtual machines, the concepts involved also apply to fresh installs for dedicated servers as well.
 

Start and Console the virtual machine

If you have not done so already, you should start and console the machine now.

Log in as Administrator

At the “Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE to log on” prompt, you will need to click the “Ctrl+Alt+Del” icon in the upper left corner of the Console window.

Enter the Administrator’s password you set earlier and click the Right Arrow button, or press Enter
 

Configure Networking

From the “Initial Configuration Tasks window that should be on your screen, click “Configure Networking”

On the “Network Connections” page, Right-click Local Area Connection, then click Properties.

From the Local Area Connection Properties pop-up window, click “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) then click the Properties button.

Request an Additional IP

Before proceeding, you will need to obtain a static IP for the VM from ServerPortal.com.

Configure the IP address and DNS Servers

On the “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties” pop-up window, select (*) Use the following IP address:

In the IP Address field, enter the IP you obtained from ServerPortal.com.

In the Subnet mask field, enter: 255.255.255.0

In the Default Gateway field, enter the IP address again, except change the last octet of the IP to 1. For example, if your IP address is 123.45.67.89, the Default Gateway will be 123.45.67.1

Set the DNS servers

Select (*) Use the following DNS server addresses:
Preferred DNS Server: 69.64.66.11
Alternate DNS server: 69.64.6610

Click OK to set the values.

To complete the network configuration, click Close on the Local Area Connection Properties window.

Locate the MAC Address

As stated in a previous step, the MAC Address must be submitted in ServerPortal before the VM will be able to connect to the Internet. To get the MAC address, open a command window by clicking the Start, enter “cmd.exe” in the Search box and press Start

At the command prompt, type ipconfig /all then look for the line labelled “Pysical Address” The number following will be the MAC Address

C:\Users\Administrator>ipconfig /all
... 
Physical address. . . . . . . : 00-15-50-B4-60-03
...

Submit the MAC address in ServerPortal

Even when properly configured, the server will not connect to the Internet until you submit the MAC Address in ServerPortal.

 
How to submit a MAC address in ServerPortal.com

Test the Internet Connection

After adding your MAC Address in ServerPortal.com, you should now be able to connect to the Internet. You can test this by pinging google.com from the command window.

C:\Users\Administrator>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [74.125.239.71] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.239.7: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=54
Reply from 74.125.239.7: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=54
Reply from 74.125.239.7: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=54
Reply from 74.125.239.7: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=54

Ping statistics for 74.125.239.7:
    Packets: Sent = 4; Received = 4, Lost =0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 33ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 33ms

Install Remote Desktop Services

In order to use Remote Desktop (a.k.a. RDP or rdesktop in Linux) it will need to be enabled. Open the Server Manager by click Start then Server Manager.

From the Server Manager screen, click “Server Manager” in the Left column, then “Configure Remote Desktop”

On the System Properties pop-up window, click the Remote tab. In the Remote Desktop section, select (*) Allow connetions from computers running any version of Remote Desktop.

Upon clicking the “Allow connections from computers…” the following pop-up window may appear. This states “Remote Desktop Firewall exception will be enabled. You have chosen to enable Remote Desktop exception for all interfaces on this machine. You can selectivel enable certain interfaces only by using the Firewall tool.” When you see this message, click OK

From this point, you can now access your VM using your chosen Remote desktop client and the IP you assigned to the server.