How To Install A Domain Controller In Windows 8 Server Consumer Preview

At the start of this year I did a post on how to install a domain controller in Windows Server 2008 R2 (and I think the method would work back to 2003 as well). However, with the release, albeit of the Consumer Preview, of Windows 8 Server (Windows Server 2013 on release?) that post is out of date.

I say it is out of date because when I tried to run it I got the following message;

So for those of you who, like myself, are preparing a test environment using Windows 8 Server Consumer Preview, SQL Server 2012, Management Reporter 2012 for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 (when it arrives) here is a walk through of creating a domain controller on Windows 8 Server Consumer Preview. Please note this is not a guide that should be used on a production environment; it is solely intended for creating a demo or test environment; I am a Microsoft Dynamics GP specialist, not a Windows Active Directory one.

After configuring your IP address as a static one (this hasn’t changed over the last version), the first step is to run the Server Manager and select option 2 – Add roles and features;

In the Before you begin step you’ll be reminded about having a strong password on your Administrator account, a static IP address and current security updates from Windows Update;

The installation type I am doing is a single server so I chose the Role-based or feature-based installation option;

Next the destination server for the installation needs to be selected, but as this is a test system I only have one server (called SERVER) to select from;

Next we need to pick the server roles to be installed. The whole point of this is to have a test system capable of running Management Reporter so I need to select Active Directory Domain Services;

Next we’ll be confirm that the features required for Active Directory Domain Services should be added;

And because this will be a stand alone test system we also need to select the DNS Server role;

And confirm that the features required for DNS Server should be installed;

You can select any additional features that you wish to install;

Next up is a summary screen of Active Directory Domain Services, what it does and some recommendations;

Followed by a similar summary for DNS Server;

Next confirm the installation selections, where you can choose to restart the destination server automatically if required (I left this unchecked so I could make sure I could do any needed screenshots);

In this case, the server did not need to be rebooted and showed that installation had completed successfully but configuration of AD DS (Active Directory Domain Services) was required;

Click the Promote this server to a domain controller to launch the Active Directory Domain Services Configuration Wizard.

This is a new environment which is being created so I need to Add a new forest, using the Root domain server of DOMAIN.AZURECURVE.CO.UK;

You can still select the Forest functional level as you could in Windows 2008 R2 but the selection only allows functional levels of Windows 2003, 2008, 2008 R2 and 8 Beta;

For a new forest I have chosen to go with the Server 8 Beta functional level and entered the Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) password;

Next up is the DNS Options where an error was detected. I don’t know what the error was (I couldn’t find the cause of the problem) and as I progressed through the install to completion and testing everything seemed to work fine. This is one of the main reasons for the disclaimer at the top; if this was being installed at a client site one of the Infrastructure Engineers would have done the AD DS install for me and I would have stepped in for the Dynamics installs, but for a test system this does meet my requirements and work as I would expect;

Next confirm, or change if required, the NETBIOS domain name, in this case DOMAIN;

Confirm, or change, the paths to be used for the AD DS database, log files and SYSVOL;

Review your selected configuration options and click back to make any changes, or click Next to proceed;

Next prerequisites will be checked for you. I received two warnings, one of which related to DNS again but in this case as I am not integrating with an existing DNS infrastructure I don’t need to do anything and instead can just click Install;

I watched the install run through, which was still displaying the warnings until the install completed;

Once installation was finished the server automatically rebooted itself before I could screenshot the completion message. The speed of the reboot and the fact I had no control over it does concern me slightly I have to admit.

Once the server had rebooted I tested it to make sure everything worked as expected and created some CNAME aliases in preparation for installing SQL Server, MR and GP.