Promoting a server to a domain controller

There are three ways to promote a Windows Server installation to a domain controller:

• Using Server Manager and the Active Directory Domain Services Configuration Wizard
• Using dcpromo.exe with an answer file
• Using the Install-DDSDomainController, Install-ADDSDomain or Install-ADDSForest cmdlets from the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell

In this recipe, we will cover the steps to promote a server using the preceding three ways.

Getting ready

In some organizations, changes can only be made using scripts and must be accompanied by roll-back scripts. In these cases, the answer file and the PowerShell cmdlets offer the best method. On Server Core installations of Windows Server...