Pre-Windows Server 2012 and PowerShell 4.0, the primary tool/command for Active Directory Domain Controller promotion and demotion has always been the Dcpromo command. With Windows Server 2012, it’s been replaced by a suite of PowerShell cmdlets contained in the ADDSDeployment module.

In this post, I’ll talk about my experience setting up a single WS2012 R2 Active Directory Controller in the following steps:

Install the Active Directory Domain Services:

The ADDS server role needs to be installed as a prerequisite to enable the ADDSDeployment module and it’s corresponding cmdlets. This could be achieved via the Server Manager GUI or directly using PowerShell cmdlets since the GUI engine basically runs on PowerShell . The ADDomain Service role installation enables the ADDSDeployment module and it’s cmdlets as shown in the next screenshot::

Validate your environment before Active Directory installation and Test for prerequisites:

Running the Test-ADDSForestInstallation cmdlet spares me the headache of a failure during AD installation. The results gives me an indication of issues I might need to be aware of and resolve before continuing the installation process as shown in the next screenshot:

Install Active Directory:

To start the Active Directory installation, I used the Install-ADDSForest cmdlet with the required Domainname parameter and the InstallDns parameter. You will be prompted for the SafeModeAdministratorPassword and confirmation for the install to continue:

The process will start a server reboot to complete the installation:

After the restart, I verified that AD is fully installed with DNS fully configured.

The Domain diagnostics test showed no errors and the Get-ADRootDSE indicates this is a Windows2012R2 domain controller running in a Windows2012R2 domain and forest functional level.