How to Promote a Windows 2000 Server to a Domain Controller
A Windows domain provides user management to a local or wide area network. Sometimes you may want to add an additional domain controller to an existing network. This may be done to provide redundancy, which provides you with reduced downtime in the event of the primary domain controller going down. This may also be done in order to improve your network performance in situations where you have multiple geographical sites on the same domain. Each site would have a local domain controller, which improves speed. Promoting a Windows 2000 server to be a domain controller is relatively simple.
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Instructions
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Select "Run" from the "Start" menu. Type "DCPROMO" and press "Enter" to launch the Active Directory Installation Wizard. Press "Next" to continue.
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Select a Domain Controller Type option and click "Next". The options are a controller for a new domain or an additional domain controller for an existing domain. When promoting a member server of an existing domain to a domain controller, select the second option. When promoting a standalone server to a domain controller for a new domain, select the first option.
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Select a Domain Tree option and click "Next". The options are to create a new tree or join an existing tree. Select the first option unless your domain is to be the child of an existing domain.
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Select a Domain Forest option and click "Next". The options are to create a new forest or join an existing forest. Select the first option unless your domain is being installed on a network with other Active Directory domains.
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Enter the new domain name in the field provided and click "Next".
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Enter the NetBIOS name in the field provided and click "Next". The NetBIOS name is used by older versions of Windows to identify the domain.
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Select the locations for your Active Directory database and Active Directory log files. You can use the default locations selected or select alternative locations. Click "Next" after selecting your file locations.
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Select the location for the Shared System Volume and click "Next". Please note that the location needs to be on an NTFS 5 volume.
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Select whether to install and configure DNS services on your server now or do this later. Click "Next" to continue.
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Select the default permissions to use. If you have older machines on your network that will need to interact with your Windows 2000 domain, select the first option. Click "Next" to continue.
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Enter a password to use for the server's Administrator account twice and click "Next".
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Review the summary of your choices for errors. Click "Next" to continue. The server will install and configure directory services based upon your choices. Once the installation is complete your server will need to be restarted to begin its role as an Active Directory domain controller.
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References
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