Windows server 2016 domain controller system requirements

While many servers today utilize Linux as their Operating System, there are still plenty of applications which are perfectly suited for Windows Server. Windows Server 2016 provides a light-weight graphical interface for individuals and enterprises running Microsoft based services.

Server 2016 of Windows Server is smaller, faster, and comes with new and upgraded features such as window containers, Hyper-v, windows defender, active directory domain services and so much more. However, you must meet the minimum requirements to be able to install and use it.

See Also: [thrive_2step id=’2926′]2020 Small Business Server PRICING LIST (PDF)[/thrive_2step]

In this article, we’ll outline the server requirements for Windows Server 2016 as well as our recommendations if you are looking to setup a Hybrid or Dedicated Server running Windows Server.

Windows Server 2016 Minimum Hardware Requirements

• Processor: 1.4Ghz 64-bit processor
• RAM: 512 MB
• Disk Space: 32 GB
• Network: Gigabit (10/100/1000baseT) Ethernet adapter, 1Gbps connection is ideal.
• Optical Storage: DVD drive (if installing the OS from DVD media)

See Also: (Live Webinar) Meet ServerMania: Transform Your Server Hosting Experience

1. Processor

For you to run Windows Server 2016, you need a minimum of AMD64 or 1.4GHz EMT64 Processor.

Your processor must also be compatible with x64 instruction set architecture and should support security features such as Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and NX Bit.

It should also support CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF.

As well, it should support Second Level Address Translation: Extended Page Table (EPT) and Nested Page Tables (NPT).

2. RAM

The following are the minimum RAM requirements for this server:

• 512 MB and 2 GB for Window Servers that have the Desktop Experience feature
• ECC type or a similar technology

If you create a virtual machine (VM) that has the minimum hardware parameters and then attempt to install WS2016 on the VM, the setup is likely to fail.

To avoid this, you can allocate 800 MB RAM or more to the VM you intend to install WS2016 on and run setup. Once the installation is complete, you can then reduce the VM’s RAM to 512 MB.

You can also interrupt the booting process of Windows Server 2016 by pressing SHIFT+F10. In the CP (command prompt) that will pop up, you can make use of the Diskpart.exe command-line tool to create the desired installation partition. Then run the Wpeutil createpagefile /path=X:pf.sys (where X represents the installation partition you created).

After that, close the CP and continue with the installation process.

3. Disk Controller and Disk Space

Your disk controller should be PCI Express compliant.

You should also note that WS2016 does not support ATA/ IDE /PATA//EIDE for boot, page, or data. For Core installation, you need a minimum disk space of 32 GB.

Additional 4 GB is required for the installation of Graphical User Interface (GUI).

4. Network Adapter

Microsoft recommends the following minimum Windows Server 2016 system requirements:

• A Gigabit adapter with 1 Gbps throughput
• Your network Adapter Should be PCI Express Compliant
• Your Ethernet Adapter should also support PXE (Pre-boot Execution Environment)

If your system meets these requirements, you can consider installing the revolutionary server.

5. Other Windows Server 2016 Requirements

If you intend to install WS2016 from a DVD media, you should ensure your computer has a DVD drive.

You should also have a UEFI 2.3.1c-based system, Graphic device, Trusted Platform Module, keyboard, internet access, and firmware supporting secure boot.

A Microsoft mouse and a monitor that has high-resolution can also help to make the installation process smooth and successful.

After installation, you need to gather some security tips to protect your Windows server.

Windows Server 2016 Recommended Hardware Requirements

• Processor: 3.0GHz 64 Bit Processor
• RAM: 8GB RAM
• Disk Space: 32 GB
• Network: Gigabit (10/100/1000baseT) Ethernet adapter, 1Gbps connection is ideal.
• Optical Storage: DVD drive (if installing the OS from DVD media)

Based on our real-world usage of a GUI based Windows Server 2016 install, we’d recommend server specs above the bare minimum outlined by Microsoft. Memory usage in particular was closer to 1.5GB than 512MB.

How much does a Windows Server 2016 Server Cost?

The cost of a Windows Server 2016 dedicated server ranges from $95/month up to $345 a month depending on your hardware requirements.

If you prefer to run Windows Server on a remote server for one low monthly fee, here are our recommendations for two  Dedicated Serves which will meet the modest needs of many projects.

​	Small Dedicated Server	Large Dedicated Server
Specs	Intel Xeon 1240v3 4x 3.4GHz Processor 32GB RAM 500GB SSD	Intel Xeon-W 2145 4x 4.0GHz Processor 32Gb RAM 2x 500GB SSD
Cost	$95/month	$165.00/month
Order	Order Now	Order Now

Wrapping Up

Windows Server 2016 is easy to install and may meet your business needs. However, you need to ensure your system meets the Windows Server 2016 requirements highlighted above.

If you have relevant questions or are in need of a quote on your next Windows Server rental, book a free consultation today.

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With this series I hope to put my own spin on the well documented process to build an Active Directory Domain Controller from scratch.  I’ll of course be using Microsoft Windows Server 2016 for this.  I’m going to include tons of screenshots to document the process step-by-step.  The new AD domain is going to be VILAB.local which is clearly for my lab.  It will be the cornerstone of my lab in terms of authentication, authorization and centralized LDAP domain management.  I’ve broken this series into 3 parts as below:

• Part 1 – AD Domain Controller Requirements & Basic Server Configuration
• Part 2 – Adding AD Domain Services Roles & Adding a new Forest
• Part 3 – AD Configuration & Validation

Active Directory Domain Controller Hardware Requirements

Right from the start we have a minor issue here.  Microsoft doesn’t list any physical or virtual hardware requirements for an Active Directory Domain Controller.  Go ahead and Google it, I’ll wait.  You’ll be presented with a ton of non-Microsoft websites giving you the minimum OS hardware requirements for either Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2 or 2016.   That’s not very helpful of course.  I was personally curious and even dug through TechNet’s Windows Server 2016 Documentation Library for Active Directory Domain Services.  This time there is a ton of information regarding AD topologies and design methodologies but again no hardware specifications.

The short answer here is there aren’t any hard and fast requirements for an Active Directory Domain Controller beyond the minimums for installing Windows Server itself.  Those requirements are as follows:

• 1.4Ghz 64-bit processor or faster
• 512MB of RAM or greater
• 32GB of disk space or greater
• Ethernet network adapter

So could we build a new Domain Controller and just use these minimums?  Sure absolutely, but it really depends on what you’re running on the Domain Controller and how large of an organization it’s supporting.  If we’re building a physical Domain Controller then just about any current server should meet the specs above easily.  If we’re building a virtual server I have a recommended minimum I use for Domain Controllers:

• 2-Core CPU
• 8GB RAM
• 60GB Thin Provisioned Disk
• VMXNET3 Network Adapter

There are many scenarios where you could certainly need more cores, memory or disk space but for most situations the above should be a pretty good start.

 Windows Server 2016 Basic Configuration & Settings

I’ll skip the 4 or 5 click it takes to install Windows Server 2016 as a virtual machine and we’ll jump right into configuring the basic Windows Settings needed before we actually install the roles for Active Directory.  I’ve already installed the VMware Tools as well.

First we need to open the Start Menu and then click to open Server Manager.

From Server Manager we click Configure this local server.

On the Local Server Properties page we have links to most of the things we need to change first thing.  After each item is configured we’ll be jumping back to this page to move onto the next configuration item.

By clicking on the Computer name or Workgroup we get the System Properties dialog.

Clicking the Change button we get the Computer Name/Domain Changes dialog.  Here we change the Computer name to what we want the Domain Controller to be named and click OK.  In this case it’s VILAB-DC01.  We leave the Workgroup as is since we’ll be creating a new domain/forest in this scenario.

After clicking OK we get another dialog indicating we will need to restart for the changes to be applied.

We then get a second dialog asking if we want to Restart Now or Restart Later.  You can restart now or wait until we’ve completed all the changes to reboot.

On the Local System Properties in Server Manager we click Remote Desktop.

This takes us to the Remote tab on System Properties and we click the radio button for Allow remote connections to this computer to enable Remote Desktop.

On the Local System Properties in Server Manager we click on the Ethernet Adapter which brings us to the Network Connections window.

Right-click the Ethernet adapter and click Properties.

From there we click on the IPv4 Properties where we set the IP address, Subnet Mask and Default Gateway.  We also set the Preferred and Alternate DNS, but since this is our first Active Directory Domain Controller and it’s our first DNS server we need to set the Preferred DNS to the servers own IP and the Alternate DNS to an external DNS source to get started.

On the Local System Properties in Server Manager we click on the Time Zone which brings us to the Date and Time dialog.

We set the local date, time and time zone as necessary here and click OK.

On the Local System Properties in Server Manager we click on the IE Enhanced Security Configuration

We need to set the Administrators option to Off.  This allows Internet Explorer to open webpages without a bunch of crazy prompts for Administrator users.

On the Local System Properties in Server Manager we click on the Feedback & Diagnostics Settings.

Here you should set the Feedback Frequency option to Never and the Diagnostic and usage data to Basic.  Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 send way too much data to Microsoft by default, some of which you can’t even disable.  That’s a whole other article though.  For now, these two settings are a good start.

On the Local System Properties in Server Manager we click on the Windows Defender option.

Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware and Anti-Intrusion software is definitely recommended and I’ll leave you to determine what’s the best solution for you.  I tend to recommend Bitdefender in most cases.  For now I recommend to turn off Real-time protection and Cloud-based Protection although it’s not a requirement in this situation.

And finally back on the Local System Properties in Server Manager we click on the Windows Update option.

Clicking the Check for updates button will find all necessary updates.  Install any listed updates and reboot the server as necessary.  You’ll notice there’s a nice blurb telling you that the Windows 10 Creators Update will be available.  This is pretty strange considering we’re on Windows Server 2016 and not Windows 10 and of course there is not a Creators Update for Windows Server 2016.  If you click Yes, show me how it won’t do anything at all.  What has happened is Microsoft’s two flagship Operating Systems share a significant amount of their codebase and clearly this just slipped through apparently.  If it annoys you that much however, you can disable the Windows 10 Creators Update notification easily with a registry edit.

At this point we should have all the prerequisite components configured for Windows Server 2016.  Please check out the next article in this series to start installing the Roles needed to build our Active Directory Forest/Domain.

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Chapter 1 – Building Our Learning Environment

In this chapter we are going to accomplish a couple of important things:

1. Download Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2016 is an Operating System designed by Microsoft that supports enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications. It is used by countless companies to operate their back-end IT operations.
Pretty much any big company that you can think of uses Windows Server in some way or another although there are alternatives such as Linux Operating systems.

1. Download & Install Oracle VM VirtualBox

This program will be our Virtual Machine manager. In later lectures we will cover exactly what a VirtualMachine is and how you will use them. Once we download these two files and install VirtualBox we will be ready to move on
to the next section

Download Windows Server 2016

Now it’s time to download Windows Server 2016. Thankfully Microsoft offers a free trial version for 2016 that anyone can download for evaluation (or in our case, training) purposes. To download Windows Server 2016, open your preferred
web browser and navigate to technet.microsoft.com. Click the “Downloads” page on the navigation menu.

Make sure you select Windows Server 2016, and no the Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5:

Again, DO NOT DOWNLOAD Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5:

Click on Windows Server 2016 to show the download page. Before you can download Server 2016 you must register and sign in. Click on the “Sign In” button

Once you are brought to the sign-in page you either need to log in or click the “Create One” button to create a new account. Once you are logged in you will be brought back to the download page. Under Windows Server 2016, choose
the file type “ISO” and click “Register to continue”

Now you will be prompted to enter personal information such as your name, email address, etc. Enter in all the required information and click continue. The download will begin and now you just need to wait for the download to finish.
Make sure you know where you are downloading the file so you can access it later.

In the next lecture we are going to open VirtualBox and create the Virtual Machine that we will install Windows Server 2016. If you want to save time go ahead and start the next lecture while this download is running and that way
when the download is complete you will be ready to move on.

What is Virtual Box?

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high-performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only
professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. For more information, visit
https://www.VirtualBox.org/wiki/VirtualBox.

Downloading VirtualBox

To download VirtualBox, navigate to
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. Click on “x86/amd64” for Windows hosts (see screenshot below) or choose the correct option for your operating system.

Save the file to a location on your HDD that will be easy to access

Installing VirtualBox

Once the download completes, launch the downloaded installer file to being the installation. The setup wizard will appear. Click “Next” to start the install.

The following screen will prompt you to the select installation directory and the features you would like to install. If you would like to install VirtualBox in locations other than the default location click “Browse” to do so,
otherwise, click Next and continue.

The next screen will prompt you to select if you would like VirtualBox icons on your desktop or quick launch bar. This is user preference but make sure to leave to box check to register file extensions. Once you have made your
selections click “Next”.

Now you will be prompted that you will lose network connectivity briefly. Make sure that this will not affect anything you are working on before moving forward. Click “Yes” to move forward.

Now you are ready to install click “Install”. During the installation you will see several pop ups asking you to install different types of “device software.” Check the “Always trust software from ‘Oracle Corporation’” checkbox
and click “Install.”

Once the installation is complete all you need to do is leave the “Start Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0.20 after installation” checkbox checked and click “Finish”.

What is a Virtual Machine?

Now we are going to learn the basics of VirtualBox and its capabilities. VirtualBox will operate our Virtual Machines (VMs) and the virtual network they will operate on. But first, let’s learn what a VM is. The short answer is
that a Virtual Machine is a software computer, or a computer within a computer. A computer that is stored on a physical computers hard-drive. You can use a VM just like you would use any computer or server. You can power it on, install Windows (or Linux),
browse the web, install server applications, connect it to internal and external networks, etc… You may ask why we would want to use a Virtual Machine instead of a physical server? Well, since the VM is stored on the hard disk drive (HDD) of a physical server,
we can copy, duplicate, delete, or move a VM at any time, meaning they are extremely portable and can be sent across the internet if need be. So if you need to transport a virtual server from Washington DC to Hawaii, that is no longer a time or cost issue.
Take a scenario where you need to repeatedly create several servers to perform service (File / Print server, Domain Controller, etc…) to various customer networks each week. You can utilize a Virtual Machine to make this task much faster by creating a single
VM and installing the OS (Operating System), all the required OS and third party updates and any necessary software. You can consider this a baseline VM. Now every time you need to deploy a new server you simply clone your baseline VM with a new name, make
any required tweaks to the VM and you’re ready to go. No more physically assembling a server and completing repetitive steps such as installing the OS, updates, software and boxing and shipping for every new server instance. Keep in mind cloning a virtual
machine is as simple as right-clicking and selecting clone. There are two terms that you must know in order to successfully work with VMs: Host and Guest. The Host is the computer that the Virtual Machine is installed on. The Guest is the VM the runs on the
Host. A Host can run several Guest VMs while a Guest VM generally only operates on one Host computer (unless the hosts are clustered, not covered in this course).

In this example we have a single Host that is running three Guest VMs. You can run as many VMs on the Host as long as the Host computer has physical resources to spare for the VM, meaning that you cannot create a VM that has more
RAM or processing power than your host computer has available. Generally, a VM will only have a fraction of the total storage capacity and processing power that it’s host computer has. For this reason, the host computer is usually a very powerful computer
that is designed to run several VMs at once. Since some of you will be running these VMs at home on your personal computer, you may need to keep some of the VMs powered off while others are turned on or keep the combined VMs processing power as low as possible.

VirtualBox Overview

Now let’s take a look at VirtualBox’s GUI. At the top we have our program options such as File, Group, and Help. Below that we have controls for managing our VMs; New, Settings, Discard, and Start. In the left pane we have a window
that displays all of our VMs and VM Groups. In the middle we have the settings of our VM and a live preview of the VM if it is powered on.

If you click the File dropdown on the menu, the first option you will see is preferences.

Click this option or press Crtl+G to open the preferences menu.

Here we can change several key configurations for VirtualBox. If you want to store your VMs on a drive other than your C drive, you can change the “Default Machine Folder” located under the General tab. Under the Input tab you
can view and change the keyboard shortcuts for both VirtualBox and Virtual Machines. It is worthwhile to look over these shortcuts and memorize those that will be useful to you. For example, Ctrl+F for full screen is a favorite of mine. The Update tab allows
you to specify the interval at which VirtualBox with check for updates. This only relates to VirtualBox and has no effect on Virtual Machine updates. These settings are perfectly fine left at default. If you prefer to use VirtualBox in a language other than
English, you can change those settings under the Language tab. The Display tab allows you to set the maximum screen size although I strongly recommend that you do not change this setting. The Network tab allows us to create and manage Virtual Networks for
either NAT (Network Address Translation) or Host-only Networks. Let me explain the difference between the two: For a reason I cannot understand VirtualBox decided to create a new network type called a “NAT Network”. This is very different from a “NAT” networking
adapter that can be selected on your VMs and you should know they are not the same. On your VMs you will have (among others) two distinct options, NAT and NAT Network. A “NAT Network” and “NAT Adapter” (these are two different things in VirtualBox) are the
easiest way to have internet access from a VM. Generally, neither of these adapters require any configuration from the Host Computer or Guest VM. Keep in mind that a VM that has a “NAT Network” adapter configured cannot communicate with its Host but can communicate
with other VMs on the same NAT network. While if a VM has a NAT Adapter configured, the VM will only be able to reach the internet and not the Host computer or other VMs on the Host computer. A Host-only network allows a VM to communicate with other VMs as
well as the Host computer. A Host-only network does not allow a VM to reach outside of the Host (no internet access). On our VMs we are going to use two networking adapters; a NAT adapter and Host-only adapter allowing us to have internet access as well as
an internal network that our Guest VMs can communicate with each other and the Host computer. The next tab is Extensions. Extension packs are offered by VirtualBox on their
download page and add support for USB 2.0 and 3.0, VirtualBox RDP and PXR boot for Intel Cards. You do not have to install any extension packs if you do not want to. The last option is for proxy settings.
I have no need for this and you probably don’t either, but if you are connected to the internet through a proxy you can enter that information here. Close the Preferences window by either clicking Cancel or the X at the top right hand corner of the screen.
The next feature we are going to talk about is the Import / Exporting Appliance settings.

These can be reached from the File menu on VirtualBox. When VirtualBox refers to “Appliance,” they mean VM. These two options allow you to import or export VMs at any time. This comes in handy when you want to move a VM from one
host to another. Next is the Virtual Media Manager. This tool allows you to manage your VM related files that are being used such as the virtual Hard Disk Drives (HDDs, which are the *.vdi files), mounted ISOs and floppy disks. If you need to detach a virtual
HDD from a VM you can select the file from the list and click “Release”.

There is also the Network Operations Manager which has nothing to do with VirtualBox networks but rather is used when VirtualBox is checking for updates. You may click the “Check for Updates” if you wish but by default VirtualBox
checks for you once every day. Lastly, If you VM warnings you may reset them by clicking the “Reset all Warnings” button.

Next we have the Machine option on the file menu. This is your menu for VM management. You can create, clone, group, modify, start or stop selected VMs from this menu. You may also create a Desktop shortcut on your desktop for
any select VM and you can view the logs of a VM for troubleshooting purposes. It is also worth noting you may click the “Add…” button to add a VM that has not been exported as an appliance yet. You may also clone a VM at any time using either a full clone
or a linked clone. A full clone copies both the VM and the HDD. A linked clone copies a VM but still builds on the original HDD file. Note that a linked clone only builds on top of the HDD file of the cloned machine, and does not actually modify the HDD for
the cloned machine as well.

There are three types of ways to start a VM; Normal, Headless and Detachable. A Normal start is when you launch a VM with a Window that must remain open in order for the VM to operate. A Headless start is when you power on a VM
without a Window. This is useful for Servers that you don’t need to interact with. A detachable start is experimental and is a mix of the two previous start methods.

In theory you should be able to detachably start a VM and a window will open. That window may be closed without powering off the VM by selecting “Continue running in the background.” Keep in mind this is experimental and not all
features work with this type of start (3D acceleration for example). I have been unable to successfully get this feature to work but it’s definitely worth a try. You may also view the files of a VM that is stored on your host computer by selecting the VM and
choosing “Machine > Show in Explorer.”

Creating a VM in VirtualBox

Now it is time to learn the detailed steps of creating a VM in VirtualBox. The objective of this lecture is to create a VirtualMachine that we will install and configure to be our first domain controller. A domain controller is
a Microsoft server that is responsible for security authentication within a Windows Domain – a domain controller can also manage computer and user accounts that are inside of it’s domain. You do can things like remotely deploy software to the computer, change
a user’s desktop background, configure scheduled tasks, Windows updates, and much, much more. The first thing we need to do is open VirtualBox. Next either select the “New” button at the top left-hand corner of the screen, select “Machine > New”, or press
Ctrl + N.

The Create Virtual Machine window will appear. Choose the “Expert Mode” button in the bottom part of the screen and wait for the window to reappear. Now you need to enter the VM name, type, version, memory size and whether or not
you want to create a hard disk.

I am going to put the name as “Windows Server 2016 – DC01”. Note that this is not actually the computer name, but the name that VirtualBox will use when storing the VM in its inventory. The “DC01” part stands for Domain Controller
01, meaning it is the first domain controller in our environment. Notice that I selected “Windows 2012 (64-bit)” as the version. This is because at the time of this writing Server 2016 was released less than a month ago and VirtualBox has not updated their
software to include this version. Do not worry if you only see Windows 2012 as the latest version as it will run the newer OS perfectly fine. I am going to specify 4 GB of Ram since my host computer has 16GB of RAM. I know some students have gotten away with
using much less than 4 GB so use as little as you can but you will certainly at least need 1 GB of RAM. Notice that you cannot allocate more RAM than what your physical system (the VM Host) has. Click “Create” and we are ready to move on to the next screen.

The next screen is asking us to create the virtual hard disk. The important thing is to move the size above 25gb. I strongly recommend that you use dynamically allocated for the method of storing the VM and moving the file size
up to at least 60 GB. Click “Create” and wait for the VM to be VM to be created. Now you can see the VM has been created and is listed in our inventory.

Now let’s learn how to edit the settings of a VM. You may do this by right-clicking the VM and choosing “Settings” or selecting the VM and pressing Crtl+S.

There are a lot of settings here so I am just going to point out what I believe are important. Under the General tab, select Advanced and change the “Shared Clipboard” and “Drag’n’Drop” to bi-directional. This will allow you to
copy / paste and drag and drop between your Host computer and your VM. Be warned, this feature does constantly fail in VirtualBox but it is extremely convenient when it is actually working.

If you would like to add an additional hard disk file, this can be done under the Storage tab by clicking on the

floppy disk with a plus sign icon and choosing “Add Hard Disk.” You may also add additional virtual disk drives if required, but that is not necessary for our purposes. To mount an ISO to the default virtual disk drive, select
the disc icon that reads “empty” and click the disk

dropdown on the right-hand side of the screen and select “Choose Virtual Optical Disk File”.

Next you need to navigate to and select the ISO file you wish to mount. If you have a physical CD that you would like to mount to the VM you can choose the “Host Drive” option instead of the virtual optical disk file. The network
tab allows us to configure VM network adapters as well as add subsequent networking adapters. Notice that the default option is the “NAT.” This is because a NAT adapter is the easiest to use when getting started.

Finally, we have the Shared Folders tab. This allows you to share files from your Host computer between your Guest VM without direct network connectivity. You may create a new shared folder and select a valid path on your Host
PC. Be sure to choose “Auto-mount” for convenience if you choose to use this.

Now you know how to create a VM and manage its properties.

Creating a VirtualBox Host-only Network

In order for our Guest VMs to communicate with other Guest VMs and our Host computer, we need to create a Host-only network. To do this, open VirtualBox and click on File > Preferences. Go under the Network tab and select “Host-only
Networks.” Select the plus button on the right-hand side of the screen to create a new network.

When you are prompted by user account control (UAC) select yes and wait for the network to be created.

VirtualBox is creating a new networking adapter for your VMs to use as a Host-only network. Once this is complete, you will see the new network listed under Host-only Networks. Select the network and choose the

edit icon.

You can see the network settings for our host-only network displayed here. Navigate to the DHCP Server tab and make sure “Enable Server” is un-checked (

), and navigate back to the Adapter Tab. Note that it automatically picks an IPv4 Address from an available subnet on your network but you are free to change this at any time. If you would like to change it to something else, you
need to verify that this network is not already in use on your network. More than likely it is not, but let’s check anyway to be sure. Open command prompt by hitting the Windows Key and searching for CMD. Once command prompt loads, enter the command “ipconfig”.
This will list all of your network adapter configurations.

If you have never viewed this information before, you need to look for each network adapters “IPv4 Address”. I have found two:

The first is my new VirtualBox Host-only network. The second is my Hosts IP that is handed out by my home network. Since I want to make my subnet similar to my host network, I am going to use the following address for my Host-only
network: 192.168.0.1. Close command prompt and return to the VirtualBox Host-only Network Details window. I will enter this IP into the IPv4 Address field and click “OK”.

Select OK on the VirtualBox Preferences window and select “Yes” when you are prompted by UAC. Now we need to connect our Guest VM to our newly created network. To do this open the settings of the VM and navigate to Network. Select
the Adapter 2 tab and check the “Enable Network Adapter” checkbox. Select “Host-only Adapter” from the “Attached to” drop-down list and make sure the name is the same as the network you just created (this will not be an issue if you only created one network).
Click OK to close the Settings window and wait for the settings to save. Now our VM is connected to the Host-only Network and all that will need to be done on the VM is configure its local VM network adapter settings when we install Windows.

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Chapter 2 – Windows Server 2016 Overview

Installing Windows Server 2016

We are ready to install Windows Server on our VM. First we need to mount (or attach) the ISO we downloaded earlier to our VM and then we can launch the VM and begin the installation. Right click on the VM and choose settings. Select
the Storage tab and select the “Empty”

followed by the disk

dropdown list. Select “Choose Virtual Optical Disk File…”

Browse to the ISO file you want mount and select “Open”. Now you will see the ISO is mounted to the VM.

Now to begin the installation we simply need to power on the VM. Make sure the VM is selected and click the “Start”

button at the top of the VirtualBox window. In the beginning it will load the Windows files from the disk, this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

Once the files have been loaded you will be prompted to select your language and keyboard input method. I will the default options and click Next. On the next screen choose the “Install Now”. You will be brought to the OS installation
screen:

If you have installed Server 2012 right away you will notice that unlike Windows Server 2012, there is no option for “Server with a GUI,” but instead it is now called “Desktop Experience.” If you do not choose a Desktop Experience
version you will install what was known as (Server Core). You will need to use the command line to complete tasks and will not have a user interface (no use of the mouse). In Server 2012, the datacenter and standard versions contained the exact same set of
features and the only difference was the licensing capabilities. This is no longer the case however. With the Standard version you may only have 2 operating system environments while Datacenter is unlimited. The Datacenter version also includes 3 new features
not included with standard; new storage features (Storage Spaces Direct and Storage Replica), shielded Virtual Machines and Host Guardian Service (more secure VMs), a new networking stack (better network performance). Since we are using this as a trial and
do not need to pay for these, I am going to choose the “Datacenter (Desktop Experience)” version – I recommend that you do the same. On the next screen accept the licensing agreement

and click next.

On the next screen you will be prompted for the type of installation you want. If you already have Windows Server 2012 installed you may choose an Upgrade. Upgrades can be nice as they will keep your files and settings intact if
possible, however, even Microsoft claims that you should perform a fresh (Custom) install if at all possible. In my experience I have never had an Upgrade work without having things break later on. Since we do not have an OS installed, we do not have any choice
other than choosing Custom. On the next screen you will be asked choose where you want to install the operating system. If you have more than one HDD mounted to the VM then you will see them listed here. Note that it is also possible to create partitions (subdivisions)
of your HDD if you would like by selecting the drive and choosing the “New”

button and entering the size of the new partition. We have no need to do this so just click “Next” to continue the installation.

Now the installation will begin. This install generally takes at least 20 minutes so now is a good time to take a break and wait for the installation to finish. Once the installation is complete you will be prompted to enter the
password for the built-in account “Administrator.” It is very important that you don’t forget this password so make sure you write the password down if your work policy allows or memorize it and click finish.

The computer will finish the installation and you will be brought to the login screen:

You may login with the Administrator credentials you just created by pressing Right-CRTL + DEL and entering the new password you just created.

Basic Windows Server 2016 Configuration

In this lecture we are going to do some basic configurations. First we are going to install VirtualBox Guest Additions and setup some basic preferences. Setup the computer’s network configuration and make sure it can reach then
internet as well as communicate with our Host computer. Finally, we will change the computer name and reboot the server. Open the VM and Press Right-Crtl+DEL to enter your login credentials. Wait for the server to fully load then at the top of the VM window,
select “Devices > Insert Guest Additions CD image…”.

Open File Explorer by clicking the folder

icon on the task bar. Select “This PC” on the left side of the File Explorer. Under Devices and Drives you should see the VirtualBox Guest Additions CD.

Double click on this CD to launch the installation. Once the welcome appears click next through the prompts and select Install. During the installation process you will be asked to install device software. Click the Install button
to continue.

Once the installation is complete you will be required to reboot the server. Choose the finish button and wait for the server to complete the reboot. Once the computer reboots, log back into your desktop and wait for Windows to
fully load. Once Windows is fully loaded we need to open Server Manager and Command Prompt. To do this, click the windows

button in the bottom left and choose the

server manager button. I recommend that you right-click on this button, choose “More > Pin to taskbar” as you will be using it quite often.

Once you are done with that I also recommend that you pin command prompt to the taskbar. You can find the command prompt launcher by clicking the windows button again and searching for “cmd”.

Now we are going to setup our network connection for our Host-only network. If you are running a physical Server or your particular environment doesn’t use VirtualBox or a Host-only network you can skip this step. However, if you
have been following all of the steps I have done so far continue on and follow these steps. Open command prompt and enter the command “ipconfig”. We are looking for your two ethernet adapters 1 and 2.

If you do not see the same settings I do then you likely do not have the exact same network settings that I have on the Guest VM. Notice the first adapter has an IP address of 10.0.2.15. I have assigned adapter 1 on my VM to be
a NAT adapter. If I attempt to run the command “ping google.com” for example, I can test to see if I have internet connectivity.

I can see I am getting replies from Google.com. This tells me that I am connected to the internet. Now I need to get the second adapter working. Notice the IP is a 169.254.***.*** address. This means that the computer itself was
unable to find a DHCP server on the network and instead assigned a private IP address to itself. We need to configure an IP address the is on the same network as the Host-only network we have created in previous lessons. To do this, we need to exit the full
screen on the VM (Crtl + F) and open File > Preferences on the VirtualBox window. Navigate to Network and select “Host-only Networks”. Select your Host-only network and click the “Edit Selected” button.

Notice if you navigate to the DHCP Server it is turned off. This is what our VM got a 169.254.***.*** address. Do not turn this back on however as we will be creating our own DHCP server on this VM later. We need to give our VM’s
second adapter an IP address in the range of 192.168.0.2-254. Navigate back to your Guest VM and open the Server Manager Window. Choose the “Local Server” tab and edit the settings for “Ethernet 2” by selecting the blue “IPv4…” text to the right.

Right click on the Ethernet 2 Adapter and choose Properties.

Uncheck the “Internet Protocol Version 6” checkbox, select “Internet Protocol Version 4” and choose Properties. Check the “Use the following IP address:” and enter the following information.

Remember, you can use any address between 2 – and 254 for the last octet of your IP address, but I am going to choose .10. Choose the subnet mask and this information will be automatically prefilled. Next, choose the “Default Gateway”.
This will be the address of our network. If you remember, we set this in VirtualBox to be the 192.168.0.1 address. For DNS settings we are going to set the preferred DNS server to a loopback IP address which is 127.0.0.1. This IP address points back to the
local server, and although we haven’t built the DNS server yet we will be doing that in the future. For the alternate IP address we will use Google’s DNS servers which is 8.8.8.8. Select OK and close out of the Properties window. Now before we can communicate
between our other VMs and our Host we need to modify the firewall settings of our local server. Go back to the Server Manager > Local Server and modify the settings for “Windows Firewall”.

Choose Advanced settings on the left hand side of the screen and click “Windows Firewall Properties”.

We need to customize the protected network connections for Domain, Private, and Public profiles. Choose the “Customize” button for “Protected Network Connections” and uncheck your Host-only network which in my case is ���Ethernet
2”.

Select OK and repeat these steps for the Private and Public profiles. This will allow traffic on our Host-only network to pass through our network adapter without being blocked or rejected. Now we need to verify that we can communicate
between our Host computer and our Guest VM. To do this we are going to attempt to ping our Guest VM from our Host computer. Exit full-screen on the VM and on your Host Computer open Command Prompt. Attempt to ping the VM by typing the ping command followed
by the IP address of the Server you just configured. In my case I set it to 192.168.0.10 so I will attempt to ping this address.

Here we can see that I can successfully ping the Guest VM. Now we have a VM server that can reach the internet as well as communicate with other VMs and the Host computer. Next we are going to rename the server. By default the
server will be named with a “WIN” prefix. To change your server name, open the Server Manager and navigate to Local Server. Click the computer name to open the System Properties.

Select “Change” and enter a new name. I am going to type in the name “ITFDC01”. ITF stands for my website name, “itFlee” and DC stands for “Domain Controller”. The 01 simply means that this is the first domain controller in this
network.

Click OK and click OK again when you are notified you must restart. Select Close on the “System Properties” and choose “Restart Now” when the window appears.

Now we are done making the basic configuration changes.

Server Manager

The primary way you manage your server is with a program that is included with all versions of Windows Server called “Server Manager”. By default, Server manager will launch when the operating system starts, but if it doesn’t you
can start it by clicking the Windows button and selecting “Server Manager”.

Server manager allows you to manage your local server as well as other servers on your local network. From here you can manage the computer name, IP address, firewall settings, Windows updates, view Events, Services, and much,
much more. On the left pane you will see Dashboard, Local Server, All Servers, and File and Storage Services. The first three items relate to the server or remote servers. The fourth is a server role called “File and Storage Services” (note that this is installed
by default). Whenever you install new server roles they will appear in this pane.

The dashboard gives a quick overview of your server and allows you to configure the server quickly. If there are any issues with the local server or remote servers (such as a service that failed to start) you will see them on this
screen. To see errors with remote servers you need to first add them as a remotely managed server. Errors with remove servers will be shown under the “All Servers” section.

The local server tab will give you detailed information about the server you are currently logged into. If you need to change anything from the computer name, domain membership, firewall, network settings etc, this is the place
to do it. You will also have all of your events and services listed here. There is much more to the local server tab, but this is the most important parts of it. The all servers tab allows you to view the same information on the local server and for remote
servers, but you cannot change the server properties (computer name, domain, firewall settings, etc). The last tab is File and Storage Services. This server role includes technologies that help you set up and manage one or more file servers, which are servers
that provide central locations on your network where you can store files and share them with users.

Roles & Features

Let’s talk about two key terms that you must know in order to successfully work with Windows Server 2016; Roles and Features.

Roles

A server role is a set of software programs that allow a server to provide a specific service to its network. An example of a role would be adding the DHCP role to our server. This will allow the server to act as a DHCP server

Features

Features are individual software programs that are sometimes required to be installed by roles, although they can be independently installed without roles as well. You can add or remove roles and features by selected the Manage
button at the top right-hand corner of the Server Manager window and selecting either “Add” or “Remove Roles and Features”

The windows for adding and removing roles are nearly identical. One allowing you to check checkboxes for roles and the other allowing you to uncheck role checkboxes. If you open the “Add Roles and Features” window you will be presented
with the “Before You Begin” tab. This tab has no functionality and is simply informational so I recommend that you check the “Skip this page by default” checkbox and click next.

The Installation Type tab gives you two options. The first option is the most common and is for installing roles and features on a single server. The second option is for installing roles onto a virtual machine (not related to
VirtualBox). Choose the first option and click next.

If you have added remote servers to manage then they will be listed here. You can also choose to install the roles on a virtual hard disk. Unless you are using Hyper-V (we are using VirtualBox), you likely won’t use this second
option. Click next.

On the Server Roles tab, you can choose any of the roles you would like to add to the server. If you only want to install features, you do not have to check any of these checkboxes. For this lecture, we are going to install and
uninstall roles and features so you understand how it works. Choose the “Fax Server” check box. You will get a popup stating that you need to add required features in order to install this role. Click “Add Features”, and then click Next.

The Features tab looks very similar to Server Roles tab. If we had not selected any roles to install, we would not be able to progress past this screen. It is important for you to know that you do not have to install roles, but
you must at least install features in order to complete this wizard. The features required by the Fax Server role are already checked for installation, so simply click next to continue. The next screen will prompt us about the new Fax Server role we are installing.
Generally when you add a new server role, you will have some type of informational tabs added to the wizard. Click Next through the prompts. When you are brought to the Role Services tab, you can check additional services if you would like them. Since this
role is temporary and just an example, I am not going to include any of these optional role services. Click Next. Now we are brought to the Confirmation tab. If you would like you can check the “restart the destination server…” checkbox but I am going to leave
it unchecked since I plan to uninstall the role immediately. As a general rule, it is a good idea to check this checkbox.

Click Install and you will be brought to the results window.

Note that you may close this wizard at any time, and the installation will still continue. Once the window is closed, you may view the progress by clicking on the flag icon on the top right-hand corner of Server Manager.

Once the installation is complete, refresh Server Manager by either pressing F5 or by pressing the refresh button next to the notifications button.

On the notifications button you will see new notification stating that you must complete the post-deployment configurations.

Just about every role you install will require some type of post-deployment configuration – since we are about to uninstall this role, we do not need to complete this. Now, let’s uninstall the newly installed Server Role. Click
Manage > “Remove Server Roles and Features.” Click next through the prompts, choosing the same settings we did when adding the Server Role. When you get to the Server Roles tab, uncheck the “Fax Server” checkbox.

You will get the popup stating that you can remove the features that were required by the server role. Notice that this list is not exactly the same as the features we were required to install. This is because we will need to uninstall
additional roles as well. Click the Remove Features button and uncheck the “Print and Document Services” checkbox. Again, you will be prompted to remove features that require the role. Click the Remove Features button. Click Next until you reach the confirmation
Window. This time, check the “Restart the Destination Server Automatically if required” checkbox. Select Yes when you receive the warning message about the reboot. Click the Remove button and wait for the uninstall to finish and the Server to reboot.

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Chapter 3 – Building a Windows Domain and Domain Controller

What is a Windows Domain and Domain Controller?

Windows Domains have been around since 1993 with the release of Windows NT. They provide System Administrators an efficient way to manage small or large networks. You only need one Domain Controller (DC) to build a Windows Domain
although most Windows Domains contain several servers and computers. A DC is any server that has the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) role installed. The server’s job is to handle authentication request across the domain. Domain controllers hold the
tools Active Directory and Group Policy among others — so when you need to create new user accounts or change domain policies, this is all done from a domain controller. You can have several domain controllers within a domain but there is only one primary
or main domain controller. The primary reason for having more than one DC is fault tolerance. The critical information (user, computer account information, etc) is replicated between the DCs so if one goes down the client computers will switch to the other
DC that is still functioning. Domain controllers use a tool called Active Directory Users and Computers, commonly referred to as AD or Active Directory. This tool is used to not only manage user and computer accounts but also acts as a directory service for
resources on your network (like printers, file shares etc). When a domain user searches for a printer to install, they will find all the printers that have been added to the Domain Controller with AD. AD is a tool to manage domain users, computers, printers,
file shares, groups, and more – these are all considered AD objects. Groups contain members which can be any valid AD object (user, computer, etc.). By default, there are several groups that come with AD like Domain Admins, Domain Users, etc. All of these
AD objects are stored within folders called Organizational Units. Group Policy Management (often called GP or Group Policy) is another important tool that is located on a Domain Controller. It allows an administrator to manage all domain users or domain computers
remotely. Group Policy uses GPOs (Group Policy Objects) to manage the settings of valid AD objects. You can target specific AD objects, specific OUs, or the entire domain. Basically anything you want to create a custom setting for, you can do it with Group
Policy – You can configure the desktop backgrounds for certain users and/or computers, manage what websites they can visit (in Internet Explorer only), manage security settings or countless other settings. To recap what we have covered in this lecture; a Windows
Domain allows management of large (or small) computer networks, they use a Windows server called a “DC” or Domain Controller, a DC is any server that has the AD DS role installed, DCs respond to authentication request across the domain, DCs have the tools
AD (Active Directory) and GP (Group Policy), Active Directory contains Objects and OUs (Organizational Units) and GP contains GPOs (Group Policy Objects) and manage settings for AD objects.

Adding the Active Directory Domain Services Role

we are going to create a Domain Controller by installing the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) role. Remember that any server running the AD DS role is considered a domain controller. We are going to add this role to our
server and create a new domain called “itflee.com”. This is the name of my website and if you would like you can create any domain name you want. You won’t break any “real” websites since there are no internet DNS servers pointing to the domain that we are
about to create. Finally, once we add the AD DS role we will promote the server as a Domain Controller. You should already know how to install a server role on the server you are currently logged in to but I am going to cover the steps again. Open Server Manager
and select Manage > Add Roles and Features

On the Installation Type Screen leave the default option “Role-based or feature-based…” checkbox check and click next.

On the Server Selection screen choose the server we built earlier called “ITFDC01” and click next.

In the server roles list choose the “Active Directory Domain Services” role

. You will see a popup window stating you cannot install AD DS unless certain role services or features are also installed:

Click the Add Features button

and then click Next to proceed to the Features screen. We do not need any additional features as all the required features were already added. Again click Next. Now you will be brought to the AD DS screen. It tells us that we will
also need install the DNS role if we do not already have it set up.

Click Next and continue on to the Confirmation screen. Here we can see the roles and features we are about to install. Click Install and wait for the installation to finish. Once the installation is complete you will have post-deployment
configuration steps to complete as well:

Click the notification flag next to manage and choose “Promote this server to a domain controller”. The AD DS configuration wizard will appear giving us three options:

The first option, “Add a Domain Controller to an existing domain” is for adding additional domain controllers to a domain you have already created. This option is not suitable for us now because we have not created a domain yet.
The second option, “Add a new domain to an existing forest” is for adding child (also called sub) domains. Let me explain. We are going to create a domain called itflee.com. If that domain already existed we could create a sub (or child) domain called courses.itflee.com.
In theory we could setup this sub domain called courses.itflee.com simply to separate our students and teachers from the administrators who reside in the domain itflee.com.

You could configure this sub domain so that Admins from the itflee.com domain can reach into the courses.itflee.com domain, but students and teachers could not reach back to the resources in the itflee.com. Again this is not an
appropriate option for us because the itflee.com domain does not yet exists. The third option is to “Add a new forest”. This allows us to create and specify a new domain. Choose this option and specify a root domain name.

I am going to enter itflee.com and click next. It will take a second before the Domain Controller Options screen will appear to just be patient while it processes. The first two options Forest Functional Level and Domain Functional
Level specify which operating system the DC will use. You need to specify the OS you are using (in this case it is Windows Server 2016). There is a bug with the latest version of Server 2016 where the developers did not configure this screen to show the latest
version as “Server 2016” but instead show it as the “Windows Server Technical Preview” so I have to choose this options.

Make sure the Domain name System (DNS) server checkbox is checked. If you remember, when we installed the AD DS role it said that we had to install this in order for the DC to function properly. The Global Catalog option means
that the server will list all active directory objects. This is a requirement for a primary domain controller or when we are creating a new domain forest.

If you choose the Read Only Domain Controller option, then the domain controller will not be able to make changes to the domain. We will want to make changes to our domain so do not check this checkbox. Type in a DSRM password
and make sure that you either write it down or memorize it. The DSRM (Directory Services Restore Mode) password allows an administrator to take an instance of AD offline for reasons like maintenance or troubleshooting. This is not a commonly used password
but you will want to keep “just in case”. Click next to proceed on to the DNS options. On the DNS Options screen you will see a warning about the DNS delegation.

This warning means that people on the internet will not be able to resolve local DNS names on your local DNS server (names like itflee.com or ITFDC01 etc). This is fine because we don’t want people on the internet to be able to
access our server for security reasons. Click next and proceed on to the Additional Options. The NetBIOS domain name is populated for us as ITFLEE. The NetBIOS name is an abbreviation of the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) which is itflee.com. I am going
to leave this at the default of ITFLEE and click continue.

On the Paths screen we can see the default paths chosen for the folders that are required by AD DS. If you would like to choose an alternate drive you can do so by clicking the “…” button

and choosing the alternate path. I recommend that you leave them at the default setting and click next.

We are brought to the Review Options screen where we can see all of the options we have chosen so far. If you would like you can click the “View script” button

and you will be presented with a PowerShell script that you can save in order to later execute and quickly complete the wizard with the same settings we just used. Close the PowerShell script and click next. Now we are brought
to the “Prerequisites Check” window. The wizard is going to go verify that the server is ready to be promoted as a DC. This will take a few minutes before it is ready so just be patient wait for it to complete the checks. Once the checks complete at the top
you will see that all prerequisite checks have passed:

If you have errors, you can address the errors (Google is your friend) and click the rerun prerequisite checks text:

Under the view results window we can see there are various warnings. None of these are critical but it is worth reading through them. We can see that the first one is a security setting stating that anything with crypography not
compatible with Windows NT 4.0 will be blocked. This is not an issue for us because we are not using old servers or old technology. The second is in regards to our first networking adapter not having a static IP address. This is because the first adapter is
connected to our NAT adapter and will not be used for our local domain. This can be ignored. The third warning is about the DNS delegation. Again we do not care if people on the internet can resolve our DNS records within our network.

Click the install button and wait for the installation to complete and the server to reboot. This can take a good while depending on the speed of your server so you will need to be patient while it works. I am going to speed up
this video so you don’t need to sit and watch the entire installation. Once the installation completes and the server reboots, press ctrl+alt+del to log in. The first thing you will notice is the NetBIOS name of our domain precedes the user account we are
logging into (in this case, “ITFLEEAdministrator”). This is in the format of [Domain Name][Domain Username].

If we had multiple domain names we could specify a different domain name by typing the name of the domain we want to use followed by a backslash and the name of the user account you want to log into. Type in the password you used
to create the administrator account when you installed the server and log in. Under the server manager you will see the new server roles of AD DS and DNS.

That is all we have to do to get our Windows Domain and Domain Controller fully operational.

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Chapter 4 – Joining a Windows 10 Workstation to Our Domain

Downloading Windows 10

Now we are going to download a Windows 10 ISO installation file from Microsoft. An ISO file is a disc image file that can emulate a CD or DVD. This file cannot be natively opened on Windows, but VirtualBox will be able to read
the ISO and get the Windows installation files from the ISO. It’s important for you to know that we are going to complete this lecture from our Host computer and not from a Virtual Machine. To download Windows 10, open your preferred web-browser on your Host
computer and navigate to google.com. In the search bar type in “Windows 10 Download Tool”. The first result with be
Microsofts software downloads page that allows us to download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool. Click the
Download tool now button and wait for the download to complete.

Once the download is complete, launch the installer file.

Once the installation has begun, accept the license terms and on the following screen you want to select
Create installation media for another PC and click Next.

On the next screen you can leave the default settings or if you want you could customize them by unchecking the
Use the recommended options for this PC checkbox. I am going to leave them at the default setting and click
Next.

On the next screen choose the ISO file checkbox. This option allows us to download an ISO file that we can later mount to a VM and use to install Windows 10.

Click Next and choose where you want to save the new ISO file. I recommend that you change the name from
Windows.iso to Windows10.iso. We don’t want to be confused between this ISO and Windows Server ISO later on down the road.

Click Save and now we simply need to wait for the download to finish.

Installing Windows 10

Next we need to create a new VM and install Windows 10. The reason why we are doing this is so we can later join the new computer to our Windows Domain and learn how to manage a client computer from a DC. To get started, the first
thing we need to do is create a new Virtual Machine. Open VirtualBox and click on the New button.

The Create Virtual Machine window will appear. If you see the
Expert button at the bottom of the Window, go ahead and switch over to that mode.

I am going to name my VM “Windows 10 VM”. Once I input that name it automatically selects the
Type, Version and Memory Size. Make sure you check the Create a virtual hard disk
now checkbox and click Create. The Create Virtual Hard Disk window will appear. Leave the file location at the default setting. Specify the HDD size you want in gigabytes. I am going to use 80 GB. Make sure
Dynamically Allocated is checked and click Create.

Now we need to mount the Windows 10 ISO we downloaded earlier. To mount an ISO means to virtually insert the disc into the computer (or VM). Right-click on the VM and select Settings. Navigate to the
Storage tab. Select the empty disc icon and under Attributes on the right side of the window click the disc icon and select
Choose Virtual Optical Disk File…

Browse to and open the Windows 10 ISO we downloaded earlier with the Microsoft Media Creation Tool. Now you should see “Windows10.iso” in the CD icon under the
Storage Tree.

The last thing we need to do is put our VM on the Host-only network we previously created for our domain controller. Click on the
Network tab and choose Adapter 2. Check the
Enable Network Adapter checkbox and change the Attached to dropdown list from
NAT to Host-only Adapter. Make sure that the same network you’re using for your DC is listed under
Name.

Click OK to close the settings Window. We are now ready to begin the installation of Windows 10. Right-click on the VM and choose
Start > Normal Start. The VM will begin to power on an it will load the Windows installation files.

Once the initial loading is complete you will be prompted to enter your language, time settings and keyboard method. Make sure you select the correct Keyboard method as this can making using the OS nearly impossible if it is wrong.
Mine is configured correctly by default so I am just going to click Next. On the next screen click
Install now. The following screen will prompt you to enter your license key. If you have one you may enter it now otherwise click the
I don’t have a product key button at the bottom of the screen.

The next screen will ask you what version you want to install. Select the appropriate version you would like to install and click
Next.

You now need to accept the license terms and click Next. Since we do not already have an OS installed that we are upgrading, we need to choose
Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).

The next screen asks us to choose the HDD we want to install the OS on. The default options are fine so I am going to click
Next. Now the installation will begin. This will take about 20 minutes to complete so I am going to speed up this video. You can pause this lecture until your installation is complete and we will complete the installation.

Once the installation completes you will be brought to the
Get going fast screen. Click Use Express settings to continue.

On the next screen you will need to specify who owns the PC. Since we are going to join this computer to a domain you will want to select
My work or school owns it and click Next.

On the next screen we want to choose Join a local Active Directory domain and click
Next.

Now we need to create our local user account for this machine. I am going to use the username paul.hill.local and I will create a password and a hint. Click
Next. Now we need to decide if we want to use Cortana or not. I am going to choose
Not now because I don’t want the computer slowed down unnecessarily by Cortana. Now the desktop will load and we are done install Windows 10. We just need to install VirtualBox Guest Additions. On the VM window, select
Devices > Insert Guest Additions CD Image… Once the CD mounts run the installation just like you did for our Domain Controller and reboot the computer when complete.

Joining our Workstation to our Windows Domain

we are going to join our newly created Windows 10 VM to our itflee.com domain. The first thing we will need to do is manually configure our TCP/IP settings so we can communicate with our DC then we can rename the computer and join
it to our Domain. We will also switch over to our Domain Controller and see where our new computer was automatically placed in Active Directory. In order to complete this lecture, we will need our Domain Controller running so we can join our new Windows 10
VM to the domain. Open your Windows 10 VM and if you still have the “VirtualBox Guest Additions CD Image” mounted we can unmount it by selecting
Devices > Optical Drives > Remove Disk from optical drive. Now we need to log into the VM. Press right-crtl+del and type in your user credentials that you created when you installed the OS. Once you are logged in and Windows has fully loaded,
click the Start button and search for “Network”. Click Network and Sharing Center when it appears.

Select the Ethernet 2 text on the right hand side of the screen.

Choose the Properties button. Uncheck
IPv6 since we are not going to be using this internet protocol. Select
IPv4 and choose Properties.

Select the Use the following IP address checkbox and for the
IP address enter 192.168.0.50 — we could use any unused IP address ending with 2 – 254 but I am going to use .50. Press the tab key and the
Subnet mask will be automatically populated as 255.255.255.0 which is correct. Now under the Default gateway enter 192.168.0.1 which is the same address as the host only network we created in VirtualBox. For the
Preferred DNS server we want to enter the IP of our DC which is 192.168.0.10.

Click OK and close out of the
IPv4 Properties and Ethernet 2 Status windows. Now we want to verify that we can communicate with our DC by attempting to ping it. A ping command sends a message to a target computer and asks for a response. If we get a response, we
know that we can communicate with the target computer. To ping a computer we need to open Command Prompt. Press the start button and type “CMD” in the search box. You will see Command Prompt show up in the results.

Start Command Prompt and enter the command ping “192.168.0.10”.

We can see that we are getting responses back from our DC. Now that we know we are able to communicate with the DC we need to rename this computer and join it to our Windows Domain. Press the Windows button again and search for
“System”. Click the Control Panel System that appears in the search results.

You will see a section called “Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings”. Click the
Change settings text to the right of this.

The System Properties window will appear. Click the
Change… button in the middle of the screen. Enter a computer name. I am going to use “ITFWS001” for ITFLEE WORKSTATION 001. Check the
Domain checkbox and enter the name of the domain you want to join. In my case it is “itflee.com��

Click OK. Now we will be prompted to enter our domain administrative credentials so we can join this computer to the domain. We can use the “Administrator” account we used to create our Domain Controller. Enter
the username “Administrator” and the password you used when creating your domain controller VM.

Click OK. In a moment you will see the “Welcome to the itflee.com domain” message appear. Click
OK and you will then be notified that you must restart the computer. Click
OK and Close the computer settings window. Now you will be asked to reboot your computer. Click
Restart Now and wait for your computer to reboot.

Now while the computer is rebooting let’s switch over to our Domain Controller. If you are in full screen mode on the Windows 10 VM press right-crtl+F to exit full screen mode and switch over to our Domain Controller. Log in to
your DC and once Windows fully loads open Server Manager and select Tools > Active Directory Users and Computers. Navigate to itflee.com > Computers. Notice we can see our new workstation has been added to built-in OU called Computers.

Now our Windows 10 workstation is on the same network as our Domain Controller and we have successfully joined it to the Windows Domain that we created earlier. We can now practice managing the workstation from our Domain Controller
using Active Directory and Group Policy. Spend some time experimenting (change the desktop background with group policy, edit security settings etc…).

Credits

Originally posted at
https://www.itflee.com

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New System Requirements of Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2016 is the latest release from Microsoft from the Server OS portfolio of Products. Unsurprisingly, with this version, Microsoft’s focus is on the Cloud Data Platform to offer a consistent platform for both On-premises and Cloud Data Centers. It will give you the ability to choose where & how you want to deploy, bare metal or in a VM, On-premises, Azure or within a multi-tenant service provider environment.

Also Read Learn about the New and Improve Features of Windows Server 2016 under 5 minutes.

The Server Operating System will focus on Enterprise Mobility (EMS), IoT, Business Insights, Application Platform and Datacenter transformation.

Windows Server 2016 System Requirements:

Processor requirements:

• A minimum of 1.4 GHz 64-bit EMT64 or AMD64 processor. Quad Core Recommended for production systems.
• Support for security features like NX Bit and DEP (Data Execution Prevention)
•  The processor should support CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchWNeeds
• Needs to Support EPT or NPT (Second Level Address Translation)

Disk Space:

For Core installation, a minimum Disk Space of 32 GB is required. Additional 4 GB is necessary for GUI installation.

Disk Space Capacity Planning:

Microsoft Support recommends the following:

• 3 times the RAM size limited up to 32 GB. Which means 96 GB (32×3 = 96 GB)
• Additional disk space of 10-12 GB for additional roles and features installed based on server roles. For 32 GB Systems with GUI (96 + 12 = 108 GB)
• Additional 10 GB is required for Windows Updates. So, 108 GB +10 GB = 118 GB for 32 GB Systems.
• 10 GB extra space for miscellaneous files and logs (Perfmon, Server Trace, etc.) (128 GB for 32 GB Systems)
• Any Disk Space requirements for applications that are installed on the OS partition are additional. For example SQL, Exchange, SharePoint MS-CRM, etc.

Disk Controller:

• Needs to be a PCI Express Compliant Disk Controller.
• ATA/PATA/IDE/EIDE are not supported for either boot, page, or data.

RAM (Random Access memory) Requirements:

• 512 MB ECC supported Memory Modules
• 800 MB for VM Installations, post-installation, reduce RAM to 512 MB.

Optional System Requirements Features:

• Support of UEFI 2.3.1c-based system and firmware with support for secure boot
• Trusted Platform Module
• Graphics Accelerator device and monitor, capable of SVGA (1024 x 768) minimum. 1080 p monitors or higher-resolution recommended.
• Input devices such as a Keyboard and Microsoft® mouse (or other compatible pointing devices)
• Internet access to download Windows Updates where the tenant is managing the updates.

Network Requirements:

• Minimum a Gigabit Ethernet adapter with 1 Gbps throughput.
• Needs to be PCI Express Compliant hardware.
• Supports Pre-boot Execution Environment (PXE).As you may know, Wireless Devices cannot be used to boot from the network.

Some of the requirements have changed compared to its predecessor, but most of the changes are already available in hardware that is sold in the market. For example, the processor feature requirements are already present in products sold for the last couple of years.

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What is Windows Server 2016?

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 is Microsoft’s server operating system (OS). It was specifically developed to serve as a platform for running networked applications. Windows Server 2016 was released for general availability on Oct. 12, 2016, and was developed concurrently with Windows 10. Mainstream support for Windows Server 2016 ended on Jan. 11, 2022.

Windows Server 2016 is part of the Windows NT family of OSes. Microsoft Windows Server OS is a series of enterprise-class server OSes designed to share services with multiple users, providing extensive administrative control of data storage, applications and corporate networks.

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 includes new features such as identity management and enhanced security capabilities designed to help organizations access data safely if stored locally, in the cloud or in a hybrid cloud. Microsoft Windows Server 2016 has had three successors, including Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022 and the Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel. Windows Server 2016 is the successor to Windows Server 2012 R2.

Notable features in Windows Server 2016

A highly anticipated feature of Windows Server 2016 was the inclusion of two native containers: Windows Server containers and Hyper-V containers. Windows Server containers run directly on the OS but are isolated from each other. Hyper-V containers provide better isolation and run from a Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine (VM). Windows Server 2016 also provided built-in support for Docker.

Other new and updated features in Windows Server 2016 include the following:

• Nano Server is a lightweight installation option designed to run exclusively in cloud- and container-based scenarios. Nano Server does not include a graphical user interface or traditional .NET framework; administrators manage Nano Server instances remotely using PowerShell and Windows Management Instrumentation. There’s also an updated module for building Nano Server images.
• Network Controller is a new server role that provides a centralized, programmable point of automation to configure, manage, monitor and troubleshoot virtual and physical network devices and services. Network Controller can be used with Microsoft System Center products, including Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager and PowerShell.
• Storage Quality of Service (QoS) provides a way to centrally monitor and manage storage performance for VMs and automatically improves storage resource fairness between multiple VMs using the same file server cluster.
• Storage Replica, a feature new to Server 2016, enables storage-agnostic, block-level synchronous replication between servers or clusters for disaster preparedness and recovery.
• Storage Spaces Direct enables highly available and scalable software-defined storage for servers in local storage. This simplifies the deployment and management of software-defined storage systems.
• Rolling upgrades for Hyper-V and scale-out file server clusters enable users to add a Windows Server 2016 node to a Hyper-V cluster with nodes running Windows Server 2012 R2.
• Hot add and remove of memory, officially known as Runtime Memory Resize, enables administrators to add or remove virtual memory and virtual network adapters while the VM is running.
• Just Enough Administration is a PowerShell toolkit that restricts users to only perform tasks for which they are authorized as part of their role.
• Encryption Supported mode offers more protection for default VMs. But it does not provide as much protection as Shielded mode.
• Identity and Access features include Active Directory Certificate Services, Active Directory Domain Services, Active Directory Federation Services, Management and Automation.
• Health Service helps to improve monitoring, operations and maintenance of cluster resources.

Is Windows Server 2016 still being supported?

The first technical preview of Windows Server 2016 was released on Oct. 1, 2014. A second and third preview were released in May and August 2015, respectively. Windows Server 2016 officially released on Oct. 12, 2016.

However, mainstream support for Windows Server 2016 ended on Jan. 11, 2022. This means that the OS only receives security updates, but no improvements or bug fixes. The extended support is set to end on Jan. 12, 2027. At this time, Windows Server 2016 will no longer receive improvements or bug fixes.

Windows Server 2016 minimum requirements

Windows Server 2016 requires the following hardware:

• a 1.4 GHz processor;
• 512 MB of RAM;
• 32 GB of disk space; and
• an Ethernet adapter capable of 1 Gbps throughput.

Requirements depend on the user’s system configuration and the features they choose to install. Processor performance, for example, depends on the clock frequency of the processor and the number of processor cores and cache.

What’s the difference between the Standard and Datacenter editions?

Windows Server 2016 offers different editions, two of which are the Standard edition and Datacenter edition. Both editions share many of the same features, but the Datacenter edition is tailored to organizations with heavier workloads, larger virtual infrastructures and more IT requirements. Although the Datacenter edition lacks many of the features associated with the Standard edition, it also provides some extra features that are not included in the Standard edition.

For example, in the Datacenter edition:

• Users can create an unlimited number of VMs, but only one Hyper-V host is available per license.
• Users can create an unlimited number of Windows and Hyper-V containers.
• There are no limitations as to where a server needs to be hosted. Servers can be either hosts or guests.
• Software-defined networking, a feature not available in the Standard edition, enables users to configure and manage their physical and virtual network devices centrally.
• Shielded Virtual Machines, a feature also available in the Standard edition, helps provide secure boot, trusted platform modules and disk encryption.
• A network controller enables users to simplify management, configuration and monitoring of their network infrastructure.

Learn more about the features added in the newest version of the Windows Server OS, Windows Server 2022.

This was last updated in March 2022

Continue Reading About Microsoft Windows Server 2016

• How to deploy a Windows Server 2016 domain controller

• Windows Server 2022 storage features address security, speed

• Clearing up the Nano Server vs. Server Core confusion

• Optimize Windows Server 2019 with file server best practices

• Microsoft releases out-of-band update for Windows Server

Dig Deeper on Windows Server OS and management

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  What IT admins should consider when licensing a VM

  

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  Compare the features in the Windows Server 2022 editions

  

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  What admins need to know about Azure Stack HCI

  

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  Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct simplifies converged, HCI storage

  

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