Okay, so I hit a point where I realized there's simply not enough class-time left for me to do all of the tickets Doug had created for Active Directory, so I asked him a week or so ago if I could create a VPN to access the school server from home so I can just continue doing the Active Directory tickets from home since class time is now so limited for how much time and classes I would need to actually do all of the thirty or so tickets. Doug said no because of the way it's set up, the school has made it so no VPN could be used. But he had another solution. Install a hypervisor like VirtualBox on a home computer or on my laptop, install Active Directory there, he can email me all the tickets and I can do them to my hearts content regardless of available class time.
I installed VirtualBox.
Then I went to https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-evaluate-windows-server-2025.html?lcid=en-us&culture=en-us&country=us in order to download an ISO and didn't like the idea of registering or any of that stuff. I asked Doug if there was just a way to download it without being identified and just having the watermark in the corner of the screen so-to-speak so I can get this done. I mean, that's what the one I installed on Proxmox a few weeks back has. He informed me that it will have to be reinstalled after 6 months because it will just stop working. I asked if there was any way around this since I am only using it for practice to make myself more hirable and I have no desire to pay the forbidding amount of money a license would require and he said no. That is what we have to do every 6 months and I was like, BYU is using non-licensed copies of Windows Server? No, he said, they pay the licenses since they can afford it. But here, for class, for doing practice tickets on project day, we reinstall everything once every 6 months. And then he said there was a way to download the ISO without registering and it just takes some searching to find it.
Finally, he clicked on the URL:
https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-evaluate-windows-server-2025.html?lcid=en-us&culture=en-us&country=us
and adjusted it to:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2025
which google will not lead you to if you query "download windows server iso", Microsoft wants you to fill out their thing so you type in this last version of the URL and get the site.
Doug thought it was cool the 2025 version was out for evaluation, and he hasn't seen it yet so he was a little excited to see it.
K, so I I was going to try to install VB on my D partition since the C partition is almost full but VB didn't like being installed on anything other than the C drive in the file path it gives by default, so I had the idea of creating an NTFS file mount so it looked like it was on C but located on D. Then Doug suggested that VB is so small, only a few MB that it'll be negligible. We definitely want to put the VMs on the D drive though.
It asked if I wanted Basic mode or Expert mode. According to research, specific selections for the VMs such as like how much RAM, how many cores, etc., I didn't actually peruse the specific features, but the point was if I wanted control of those, go expert mode. So I chose that option.
In VB, I pressed the New button at the top of the window > a wizard appeared so I could specify everything > I named the VM WinServ25AD > selected D drive for the folder > selected ISO > selected Microsoft Windows for Type > under Version selected Windows 2022 64-bit, since Doug says it doesn't matter because it just helps me to know what to allocate for the VM > selected Skip Unattended Installation was unselected so I could do the unattended installation. Under hardware, it suggests what the best amounts of memory, hard drive, and processor cores to give it by showing green and red lines. I went 6GB RAM since I have 16 GB on my laptop > 3 cores since I have 8 threads > and under the Hard Disk dropdown I put 50 GB hard drive space and made sure that the Pre-allocate Full Size was not checked > pressed finish.
It started installing the OS and when selecting the hard drive to install it on and pressing next, I got an error.
It said there is an error selecting this partition for install. Please select a different partition or refresh selections.
To solve it, back in the VirtualBox Manager, I went settings > Storage in the side pane > selected Controller: SATA, on one of the two icons within the highlighted selection I clicked Add Optical Drive > a new window appeared and selected WindowsServer2025.iso, clicked Add disk image at the top of the window > navigated to its location on my computer and selected it and pressed OK > back to the add optical media window, I pressed Choose at the bottom of this window > and back to the window that had Controller: SATA highlighted, a dropdown of selections below this had appeared and I selected my ISO for WinServ, made sure on the right pane Live CD/DVD was selected and pressed OK > started the installation again and this time when reaching the Skip Unattended Installation box, made sure to tick it this time because we wanted full control but I misunderstood this the first time. We got passed the error no problem this time.
I created a password and immediately went to Server Manager in the Start Menu, went to the Server Manager.
nothing seemed to happen, this is normal > navigated to This PC in the Server OS...
> clicked on the CD ROM drive which opened a wizard > clicked next and allowed it to install in the automatic place > left the selections to be installed as-is, which installs VirtualBox Guest Additions along with Direct3D support and OpenGL.
On the Server Manager Dashboard...
I went Add Roles and Features > went Role-Based...
> selected DS, LDS, DNS...
and then had the idea that since I was having Doug create broken System Administrator problems to troubleshoot and fix for me, I would ask him since this was his second to last day if I could still have him give me broken stuff to fix every once in a while and installed Web Server in this same menu as well.
Doug was just telling a story last week about how at BYU, this other building that he doesn't work in a site that is always going down because it uses a Windows Server to run the website which is terrible. It's always going down. He said it is far easier to just use a Linux Server to run websites. So I asked him, so should I learn it? I wasn't thinking about the realities I would run into, if it is so bad then why should I learn it and he explained that it is still used and when it is, they will need people that know how to use it, so yes, you should learn it. And it will go down frequently compared to knowing how to use a Linux web server, so that skill will be in high demand.
2025-02-05 - Looking at setting up a home lab, a friend gave me a computer I can use for this project. Although, I am not sure that this will be able to do more than just run windows server. I got the impression that I should actually set up a bunch of VMs on Proxmox so I can add them to the domain for active directory. And this way I can also try other projects too without having to wipe anything else I have done. And this does take a lot of juice on my laptop to run, so I feel like if I let a blade server at home do all the work and install Proxmox on that and access it remotely, then I can access this remotely on my laptop. But I would have to buy a blade server to do this with. It would have to be a blade server too because my computer stack is not in a cabinet, I literally have my desktop on a vasa mount and other devices stacked below it and the top most thing being my file server computer tower which cannot have anything stacked on top of it.
I am continuing the last of this stage of setting up Active Directly by promoting the server to the domain. I clicked on the notification center with a yellow triangle.
In the Task Details window, selected Promote this Server to a Domain Controller.
A new window appeared, selected Add A New Forest, give it a domain name, and avoid public domain names, enter something like DougsDisciples.lan or example.local. Something non-routable. I'm entering Biff.local and pressed next. On the next page I entered a DSRM password (Directory Services Restore Mode), a special admin password used to boot into Directory Services Restore Mode on a domain controller. I typed jackrabbitslims32%. It would not let me pass until it had both so many characters, a number and a symbol. On the next page my research turned up that I do not need to create a DNS delegation because my DNS server is already installed on the same server that will be the domain controller.
NetBIOS is a legacy thing, my understanding is that DHCP and DNS have replaced it. NetBIOS still exists in Active Directory for backwards compatibility.
I failed prerequisites thing and I was about to
start troubleshooting here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DNS Configuration: The server might not be correctly configured to use DNS as required for domain controllers. Make sure the server is using its own IP address as its DNS server.
- Solution:
- Open Network Connections.
- Right-click the active network adapter and select Properties.
- Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click Properties.
- Ensure the Preferred DNS server is set to the server's own IP address (the one you're promoting).
- Apply and check again.
Time Synchronization: Active Directory requires that the time on the domain controller be within 5 minutes of other domain controllers or the time server.
- Solution:
- Make sure the time is correctly set. You can sync time using the command:
Restart Requirement: Sometimes, the system needs to be restarted before the promotion can continue.
- Solution: Try restarting the server and then rerun the promotion wizard.
- Exit the setup (click Cancel or close the wizard).
- Fix the issues mentioned in the previous steps (DNS configuration, time synchronization, restart if necessary).
- After making those changes, restart the server if prompted or if needed.
- Rerun the promotion wizard once the system is updated.
After trying the above steps, click Rerun Prerequisites Check to see if the issue persists. Let me know if it does!
Yes, you should exit the promotion setup for now and follow the instructions to address the potential issues before continuing. Here's what you can do:
Once you’ve made sure everything is set up correctly, proceed with the promotion steps and click Rerun Prerequisites Check again. Let me know how it goes!
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