Installing Forest

NOTE: Always download evaluation copies from Microsoft.

Microsoft Evaluation Center

Windows Server Evaluation 2019 Activation Key

Windows Server 2016 Essentials JCKRF-N37P4-C2D82–9YXRT-4M63B

Windows Server 2019 Standard N69G4B89J24G8F4WWYCCJ464C

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter WMDGN-G9PQG-XVVXX-R3X43–63DFG

Windows Server Evaluation 2022 Activation Key

Windows Server 2022 Standard VDYBN-27WPP-V4HQT-9VMD4-VMK7H

Windows Server 2022 Azure Edition NTBV8–9K7Q8-V27C6-M2BTV-KHMXV

Windows Server 2022 Datacenter WX4NM-KYWYW-QJJR4-XV3QB-6VM33

Installing Windows Server

We'll be installing Windows Server 2019. Evaluation Copies are available for 2022 as well.

Bypass Easy Install

The trick is to bypass Easy Install

1. First start VMware Workstation

2. Create A New Virtual Machine

3. Select the option “I will install the operating system later”

4. Then your new virtual machine will be added to your virtual library.

5. Double click on your new Virtual Machine to start it.

6. Then it will prompt that an OS is not installed and provide an option to insert the OS installation media.

7. Simply click on Change CD/DVD Settings to select your ISO media then Restart VM.

Make sure to choose the Desktop Experience version

Setting Up Domain Controller

Once we've installed Windows Server, we'll setup an Active Directory Domain Controller (DC) on it.

Changing Host name

We want this to contain the proper naming convention. Ends in DC<DC#>.

Rename-Computer -NewName "EVLDC01" -Restart

Assign Static IP

Before we configure our server as a Domain Controller, we need to assign as Static IP. We can use network manager to do so.

Adding Roles

Click "Add Roles and Features" will bring us to the installation wizard.

We'll add the following options to create a minimal active directory environment to start from.

Promoting to Domain Controller

After we've installed the Roles we can promote the Server to Domain Controller.

Rebooting.

Click through the the next prompts. This will configure NetBIOS name, and other pre-requisites along with show some warnings. Once we log back in our Domain Controller is ready!