Installing AD on Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Active Directory provides the structure to centralize the network management and store information about network resources across the entire domain. Active Directory uses Domain Controllers to keep this centralized storage available to network users. In order to configure a Windows Server 2008 machine to act as Domain Controller, several considerations and prerequisites should be taken into account, and several steps should be performed. In this article I will guide you through these prerequisites and steps of creating a new Windows Server 2008 Domain Controller for a new Active Directory domain in a new forest.

Considerations when Installing a new Windows Server 2008 forest

When you install AD to create the first domain controller in a new Windows Server 2008 forest, you must keep the following considerations in mind:

• You must make forest and domain functional level decisions that determine whether your forest and domain can contain domain controllers that run Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, or both. To read more about forest and domain functional levels please refer to the links below.
• Domain controllers running the Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 operating system are NOT supported with Windows Server 2008.
• Servers running Windows NT Server 4.0 are NOT supported by domain controllers that are running Windows Server 2008, meaning you MUST have additional DCs running Windows 2000/2003 to support older NT 4.0 servers.
• The first Windows Server 2008 domain controller in a forest must be a global catalog server and it cannot be an RODC.

Considerations when Installing a new Windows Server 2008 domain in an existing Windows 2000/2003 forest

When you install AD to create the first domain controller in a new Windows Server 2008 domain, you must keep the following considerations in mind:

• Before you create a new Windows Server 2008 domain in a Windows 2000/2003 forest, you must prepare the forest for Windows Server 2008 by extending the schema (that is, by running ADPREP /forestprep). To read more about ADPREP please refer to the links below or my "Windows Server 2008 ADPREP" article.
• You must make domain functional level decisions that determine whether your domain can contain domain controllers that run Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, or both. To read more about forest and domain functional levels please refer to the links below.
• I recommend that you host the PDC emulator operations master role in the forest root domain on a domain controller that runs Windows Server 2008. For more information about FSMO Roles, please read my "Understanding FSMO Roles in Active Directory" and "Transferring FSMO Roles" articles.

General considerations

Make sure you read and follow the requirements described in my "Active Directory on Windows Server 2008 Requirements" article.

Installing Active Directory Domain Services (AD-DS)

In Windows Server 2008, unlike previous server operating Systems, there is an additional step that needs to be taken before running DCPROMO to promote the server to Domain Controller and installing Active Directory on it. This step is the installation of Active Directory Domain Services (AD-DS) role on the server. In fact, the AD-DS role is what enables the server to act as a Domain Controller, but you will still need to run DCPROMO the regular way.

AD-DS can be installed in one of 3 methods:

Method 1 – Server Manager/Initial Configuration Tasks

Roles can and should be added from Server Manager (but they can also be initiated from the Initial Configuration Tasks wizard that auto-opens the first time you log on to the server).

1. Open Server Manager by clicking the icon in the Quick Launch toolbar, or from the Administrative Tools folder.
2. Wait till it finishes loading, then click on Roles > Add Roles link.



3. In the Before you begin window, click Next.



4. In the Select Server Roles window, click to select Active Directory Domain Services, and then click Next.



5. In the Active Directory Domain Services window read the provided information if you want to, and then click Next.



6. In the Confirm Installation Selections, read the provided information if you want to, and then click Next.



7. Wait till the process completes.



8. When it ends, click Close.



9. Going back to Server Manager, click on the Active Directory Domain Services link, and note that there's no information linked to it, because the DCPROMO command has not been run yet.



10. Now you can click on the DCPROMO link, or read on.




Method 2 – Servermanagercmd.exe

Servermanagercmd.exe is the command prompt equivalent of the Add Roles and Add Features wizards in Server Manager. Through the use of various command line options, you can quickly and easily add or remove features and roles to or from your server, including the AD-DS role.

To install AD-DS by using Servermanagercmd.exe, simply enter the following command in the Command Prompt window:

Servermanagercmd.exe –I ADDS-Domain-Controller

Let the command run and when it finishes, AD-DS will be installed on the server.

Method 3 – Letting DCPROMO do the job

Oh yes. If you forget to install AD-DS or simply want to skip clicking on some windows, you can run DCPROMO from the Run command and before it is executed, the server will check to see if the AD-DS binaries are installed. Since they are not, they will auto-install.



After you complete the Add Roles Wizard, either click the link to start the Active Directory Domain Services Installation Wizard, or close Server Manager and manually run DCPROMO from the Run command.

Running DCPROMO

After installing the AD-DS role, we need to run DCPROMO to perform the actual Active Directory database and function installation.

Note: This guide assumes this is the first Domain controller in the forest, thus creating a new domain in a new forest. For a guide on how to add additional Domain Controllers to existing domains, please read my upcoming "Installing Additional Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers in your Existing Active Directory Domain" article.

1. To run DCPROMO, enter the command in the Run command, or click on the DCPROMO link from Server Manager > Roles > Active Directory Domain Services.



2. Depending upon the question if AD-DS was previously installed or not, the Active Directory Domain Services Installation Wizard will appear immediately or after a short while. Click Next.



Note: The Advanced features of DCPROMO will be discussed in a future article.

3. In the Operating System Compatibility window, read the provided information and click Next.



4. In the Choosing Deployment Configuration window, click on "Create a new domain in a new forest" and click Next.



5. Enter an appropriate name for the new domain. Make sure you pick the right domain name, as renaming domains is a task you will not wish to perform on a daily basis. Click Next.



Note: Do NOT use single label domain names such as "mydomain" or similar. You MUST pick a full domain name such as "mydomain.local" or "mydomain.com" and so on.

The wizard will perform checks to see if the domain name is not already in use on the local network.



6. Pick the right forest function level. Windows 2000 mode is the default, and it allows the addition of Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers to the forest you're creating. Read my "Understanding Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain and Forest Functional Levels" article for more information on that.



7. Pick the right domain function level. Windows 2000 Native mode is the default, and it allows the addition of Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers to the domain you're creating.



Note: If you select "Windows Server 2008" for the forest function level, you will Not be prompted to pick a domain function level. Read more about domain and forest function levels on my "Understanding Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain and Forest Functional Levels" article.

8. The wizard will perform checks to see if DNS is properly configured on the local network. In this case, no DNS server has been configured, therefore, the wizard will offer to automatically install DNS on this server.



Note: The first DCs must also be a Global Catalog. Also, the first DCs in a forest cannot be a Read Only Domain controller.

9. It's most likely that you'll get a warning telling you that the server has one or more dynamic IP Addresses. Running IPCONFIG /all will show that this is not the case, because as you can clearly see, I have given the server a static IP Address. So, where did this come from? The answer is IPv6. I did not manually configure the IPv6 Address, hence the warning. In a network where IPv6 is not used, you can safely ignore this warning.



10. You'll probably get a warning about DNS delegation. Since no DNS has been configured yet, you can ignore the message and click Yes.



11. Next, change the paths for the AD database, log files and SYSVOL folder. For large deployments, carefully plan your DC configuration to get the maximum performance. When satisfied, click Next.



12. Enter the password for the Active Directory Recovery Mode. This password must be kept confidential, and because it stays constant while regular domain user passwords expire (based upon the password policy configured for the domain, the default is 42 days), it does not. This password should be complex and at least 7 characters long. I strongly suggest that you do NOT use the regular administrator's password, and that you write it down and securely store it. Click Next.



13. In the Summary window review your selections, and if required, save them to an unattend answer file. When satisfied, click Next.



14. The wizard will begin creating the Active Directory domain, and when finished, you will need to press Finish and reboot your computer.



Note: You can automate the rebooting process by checking the Reboot on Completion checkbox.

To automate domain controller installations, you can use an answer file or you can specify unattended installation parameters at the command line. More on that in my "Creating an Unattend Installation File for DCPROMO in Windows Server 2008" article.

Note: As written in my "Installing Active Directory on Windows 2008 Server Core" article, configuring a Windows Server 2008 Server Core machine REQUIRES you to perform an automated installation of Active Directory on that server, as there is NOT DCPROMO GUI on Server Core.

Your server now acts as a Domain Controller. Make sure you properly back it up. You can test functionality by using AD management tools such as Active Directory Users and Computers, examine the Event Logs, services and folders and shares that have been created.

How to Install Windows Server 2008 Step by Step

Installing Windows Server 2008 is pretty straightforward and is very much like installing Windows Vista, but I thought I'd list the necessary steps here for additional information. For those of you who have never installed Vista before, the entire installation process is different than it used to be in previous Microsoft operating systems, and notably much easier to perform.

Using Vista's installation routine is a major benefit, especially for a server OS. Administrators can partition the system's hard drives during setup. More importantly, they can install the necessary AHCI or RAID storage drivers from a CD/DVD or even a USB thumb drive. Thus, error-prone floppies can finally be sent to the garbage bin.

Also see » What's New in Group Policy?

Note: Windows Server 2008 can also be installed as a Server Core installation, which is a cut-down version of Windows without the Windows Explorer GUI. Because you don't have the Windows Explorer to provide the GUI interface that you are used to, you configure everything through the command line interface or remotely using a Microsoft Management Console (MMC). The Server Core can be used for dedicated machines with basic roles such as Domain controller/Active Directory Domain Services, DNS Server, DHCP Server, file server, print server, Windows Media Server, IIS 7 web server and Windows Server Virtualization virtual server. For Server Core installations please see my "Installing Windows Server 2008 Core" article.

To use Windows Server 2008 you need to meet the following hardware requirements:

Component	Requirement
Processor	• Minimum: 1GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4GHz (x64 processor) • Recommended: 2GHz or faster Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
Memory	• Minimum: 512MB RAM • Recommended: 2GB RAM or greater • Maximum (32-bit systems): 4GB (Standard) or 64GB (Enterprise and Datacenter) • Maximum (64-bit systems): 32GB (Standard) or 2TB (Enterprise, Datacenter and Itanium-based Systems)
Available Disk Space	• Minimum: 10GB • Recommended: 40GB or greater Note: Computers with more than 16GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files
Drive	DVD-ROM drive
Display and Peripherals	• Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor • Keyboard • Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Upgrade notes:

If you are currently running:	You can upgrade to:
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2)	Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2)	Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition (R2, Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2)	Full Installation of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition

Follow this procedure to install Windows Server 2008:

1. Insert the appropriate Windows Server 2008 installation media into your DVD drive. If you don't have an installation DVD for Windows Server 2008, you can download one for free from Microsoft's Windows 2008 Server Trial website.

2. Reboot the computer.

3. When prompted for an installation language and other regional options, make your selection and press Next.

4. Next, press Install Now to begin the installation process.

5. Product activation is now also identical with that found in Windows Vista. Enter your Product ID in the next window, and if you want to automatically activate Windows the moment the installation finishes, click Next.

If you do not have the Product ID available right now, you can leave the box empty, and click Next. You will need to provide the Product ID later, after the server installation is over. Press No.

6. Because you did not provide the correct ID, the installation process cannot determine what kind of Windows Server 2008 license you own, and therefore you will be prompted to select your correct version in the next screen, assuming you are telling the truth and will provide the correct ID to prove your selection later on.

7. If you did provide the right Product ID, select the Full version of the right Windows version you're prompted, and click Next.

8. Read and accept the license terms by clicking to select the checkbox and pressing Next.

9. In the "Which type of installation do you want?" window, click the only available option – Custom (Advanced).

10. In the "Where do you want to install Windows?", if you're installing the server on a regular IDE hard disk, click to select the first disk, usually Disk 0, and click Next.

If you're installing on a hard disk that's connected to a SCSI controller, click Load Driver and insert the media provided by the controller's manufacturer.

If you're installing in a Virtual Machine environment, make sure you read the "Installing the Virtual SCSI Controller Driver for Virtual Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008"

If you must, you can also click Drive Options and manually create a partition on the destination hard disk.

11. The installation now begins, and you can go and have lunch. Copying the setup files from the DVD to the hard drive only takes about one minute. However, extracting and uncompressing the files takes a good deal longer. After 20 minutes, the operating system is installed. The exact time it takes to install server core depends upon your hardware specifications. Faster disks will perform much faster installs… Windows Server 2008 takes up approximately 10 GB of hard drive space.

The installation process will reboot your computer, so, if in step #10 you inserted a floppy disk (either real or virtual), make sure you remove it before going to lunch, as you'll find the server hanged without the ability to boot (you can bypass this by configuring the server to boot from a CD/DVD and then from the hard disk in the booting order on the server's BIOS)

12. Then the server reboots you'll be prompted with the new Windows Server 2008 type of login screen. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to log in.

13. Click on Other User.

14. The default Administrator is blank, so just type Administrator and press Enter.

15. You will be prompted to change the user's password. You have no choice but to press Ok.

16. In the password changing dialog box, leave the default password blank (duh, read step #15…), and enter a new, complex, at-least-7-characters-long new password twice. A password like "topsecret" is not valid (it's not complex), but one like "T0pSecreT!" sure is. Make sure you remember it.

17. Someone thought it would be cool to nag you once more, so now you'll be prompted to accept the fact that the password had been changed. Press Ok.

18. Finally, the desktop appears and that's it, you're logged on and can begin working. You will be greeted by an assistant for the initial server configuration, and after performing some initial configuration tasks, you will be able to start working.

Next, for the initial configuration tasks please follow my other Windows Server 2008 articles found on the Related Windows Server 2008 Articles section below.

For Official Microsoft information on Windows Server 2008, see the Windows Server 2008 homepage.

Preparing to Run the Windows 7 Readiness Assessment

Before you use MAP to assess the readiness of your desktop computers for a migration to Windows 7, you need to make sure they can be assessed. The great thing about MAP is that it is agent less, which means that you do not need to deploy a software agent to each desktop machine that you want to assess. Instead of using agents, MAP uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect hardware devices and software information from the computers on your network. In order for WMI to be able to do this, your desktop computers must be configured to allow remote WMI queries. This means that you have to enable the Remote Administration and the File & Printer Sharing exceptions in Windows Firewall on all your desktop computers. You can use Group Policy to enable Windows Firewall exceptions in an Active Directory-based network (in a workgroup you have to do this manually on each computer). Also, in a domain environment, you need to run MAP on a computer on which you have logged on as a member of the Domain Admins security group (in a workgroup environment you need to provide MAP with local Administrator credentials for each computer). Additional configuration steps may need to be performed in order to prepare your desktop computers for assessment by MAP. For more information, see the Getting Started Guide for MAP 4.0, which is available from Start | All Programs | Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit. Be sure also to review the MAP FAQ before using MAP.

Performing a Windows 7 Readiness Assessment

To perform your Windows 7 Readiness assessment, open the MAP console, select the Inventory and Assessment button at the bottom portion of the navigation pane, expand Discover and Readiness in the top portion of the navigation pane, and select Windows 7 Readiness (Figure 1):

Figure 1: Running a Windows 7 Readiness assessment using MAP 4.0

Click the Inventory and Assessment Wizard link in the right pane to launch the Inventory and Assessment Wizard. On the first page of this wizard you can specify which method(s) you would like to use in order to locate the computers on your network (Figure 2). The supported methods in MAP 4.0 include:

• Querying Active Directory for computer accounts in domains or OUs you specify
• Using Win32 LAN Manager APIs to query the Computer Browser service to find computers belonging to workgroups
• Importing a list of computer names (NetBIOS or FQDNs) from a text file
• Scanning a specified IP address range for computers
• Manually specifying computer names (NetBIOS or FQDNs) if you only have a few computers to assess
• Discover Windows virtual machines running on VMware servers

By default, Active Directory and Windows network protocols are used, but to keep things simple in this example, we will clear the second option and only query Active Directory.

Note:
Selecting different options on this page may result in additional wizard pages being displayed later on. 

Figure 2: Choosing which methods to use to discover computers on your network

On the next page of the wizard we specify the Domain Admin credentials MAP can use to query Active Directory (Figure 3):

Figure 3: Specify Domain Admin credentials for MAP to query Active Directory

On the next wizard page, we will specify that MAP should only query for computer accounts in the Seattle Computers OU since those will be the computers we will pilot Windows 7 on (Figure 4):

Figure 4: Specify the domain and organizational units where the computers reside

The next wizard page asks us for credentials MAP can use to remotely connect to each computer using WMI (Figure 5):

Figure 5: MAP needs credentials to remotely connect to computers using WMI

Clicking New Account opens the Inventory Account dialog box (Figure 6). Specify a Domain Admin account for the inventory account:

Figure 6: Specify a Domain Admin account for WMI connections to remote computers

Clicking Save adds the specified account to the WMI Credentials page of the wizard (Figure 7):

Figure 7: Credentials for remote WMI connections have been specified

The final page of the wizard summarizes the choices you have made (Figure 8):

Figure 8: Summary page of wizard

Clicking Finish starts the inventory process and displays a Status dialog box (Figure 9):

Figure 9: Status of the inventory process is displayed

Once the assessment is finished, click Close. After a few moments MAP will display the results of the assessment. Figure 10 shows that two client computers were found in the specified OU and that both of them were ready for Windows 7:

Figure 10: Summary results of the Windows 7 Readiness assessment

Scrolling down the middle pane of MAP shows additional details of the assessment. For instance, we can see in Figure 11 that there are a few device incompatibility issues that we will need to resolve with device manufacturers before we migrate the computers to Windows 7.

Figure 11: Note that 6% of the devices on the assessed computers may be incompatible with Windows 7

Changing the Hardware Requirements

Let us examine what hardware requirements were used during the above assessment as a basis for determining whether our computers are ready for Windows 7. In the Actions pane at the right side of the above figure, click Set Assessment Properties to open the Assessment Properties dialog box (Figure 12):

Figure 12: Default hardware values used by MAP for assessing Windows 7 readiness

By default, MAP uses the following minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7 readiness (these values are preliminary and are subject to change at RTM):

• CPU minimum speed 1.0 GHz
• Minimum free disk space 20 GB for x64 systems and 16 GB for x86 systems
• Minimum RAM of 2 GB for x64 systems and 1 GB for x86 systems

What if these hardware requirements are not sufficient for the needs of our business? For example, since we plan on using our two computers in Seattle for some fairly intensive work, such as video processing, let us increase these minimum requirements and see if our computers will still be ready for Windows 7. To do this, select Use Custom Settings and specify the new requirements shown in Figure 13:

Figure 13: Specifying more stringent hardware requirements for Windows 7

Now click Run Assessment to re-run the Windows 7 Readiness assessment using these more stringent hardware requirements (Figure 14):

Figure 14: Re-running the assessment

Generating Proposals and Reports

We have now run two assessments that basically answer the following two questions:

• How many computers at Seattle are ready for Windows 7?
• Will these computers still be ready for Windows 7 given our more stringent hardware requirements?

Let us generate reports we can share and review with our IT team and later with management. To generate reports, click Generate Report/Proposal in the Action pane at the right of Figure 11 shown previously. When you do this, MAP generates a proposal (Word doc) and an Excel workbook containing various reports (Figure 15):

Figure 15: Reports and proposals are being generated

Let us look at the Excel workbook first as it contains the detailed information our IT staff will need to review. To find our proposals and reports, select View | Saved Reports and Proposals to open the folder where the proposals and reports are found (Figure 16):

Figure 16: Proposals and Reports generated by MAP

We will open the Excel workbook and look at each worksheet. The first worksheet provides a summary of Windows 7 readiness information for computers that are already running a Microsoft Windows client (Figure 17):

Figure 17: Windows 7 Assessment Summary for Client Computers worksheet

The next worksheet shows the system requirements provided by Microsoft in addition to any recommended settings that were used in the assessment (Figure 18):

Figure 18: System Requirements Used in the Assessment worksheet    

The next worksheet provides a summary of Windows 7 readiness information for computers that are already running a Microsoft Windows client operating system. For rows that report "Insufficient Data" refer to the WMI Status column for more information about why inventory data could not be collected (Figure 19):

Figure 19: Windows 7 Assessment Results for Client Computers worksheet

The next worksheet is a summary of the hardware devices found on the computers. It identifies whether a driver is available on the Windows 7 DVD, from Windows Update, or if you need to contact the hardware manufacturer to identify if a driver is available for Windows 7. This summary worksheet has a row for each discovered device and provides the number of computers where the device was found. To identify the specific devices on each computer, refer to the Device Inventory Details Worksheet (Figure 20):

Figure 20: Device Assessment Summary worksheet       

The next worksheet describes the hardware devices discovered on each specific computer. It identifies whether a driver is available on the Windows 7 DVD, from Windows Update, or if you need to contact the hardware manufacturer to identify if a driver is available for Windows 7 (Figure 21):

Figure 21: Device Assessment Details worksheet                                            

The next worksheet describes computers that are not currently able to run Windows 7 and the hardware upgrades required for them to meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 7 (Figure 22):

Figure 22: Windows 7 Minimum Ready Computers After Hardware Upgrades worksheet                              

The next worksheet describes computers that are not currently able to run Windows 7 or meet the minimum system requirements. It provides the hardware upgrades required for the computers to be ready for Windows 7 using the recommended hardware requirements selected for this assessment (Figure 23):

Figure 23: Windows 7 Recommended Ready Computers After Hardware Upgrades worksheet                   

The eighth and final worksheet describes up to 60,000 applications discovered through the inventory process on client machines and provides a count of the number of times a particular version of the software was found. The data in this sheet is based solely upon computers where a successful inventory was performed (Figure 24):

Figure 24: Discovered Applications worksheet

Finally, let us examine the Word doc generated by MAP, which summarizes the results of our Windows 7 Readiness assessment (Figure 25):

Figure 25: MAP generates a proposal you can present to management

As you can see from the outline on the left, this document contains both the results of your assessment and also some additional information concerning the benefits of deploying Windows 7 Enterprise edition in your organization. You can use this document as the basis for the proposal you will present to management. Lastly, MAP 4.0 will give you the ability to insert your own text and logos within the Word template, allowing users such as consultants to customize the outputs with their own "branding" in future scans.