Windows Server 2003 Setup Guide

by zorkshin on Aug 1, 2005 | 13 comments

Configuring Your Network Settings

Before we begin the crucial step of setting up Active Directory, we should first configure the networking settings of the server. Specifically, the TCP/IP network connection that your server utilizes should be set to “manually configured” and you should specifically define the IP address of your server and its DNS settings.

To do this, go to Start -> Control Panel -> Network Connections -> Your network connection, and then click on Properties. Next, click on Internet Protocol and click Properties. Finally, choose “Use the following IP address” and “Use the following DNS server address.” Define these settings to your heart’s content, and click on OK, and then OK, and then Close.

Setting Up Active Directory

Now that you have installed and activated Windows Server, it is time to setup what is arguably the most crucial feature in the Windows Server releases – Active Directory. Active Directory allows a group of connected client PC’s to authenticate and share resources through a central server, known as the domain controller. Before a server can be a domain controller, however, there must first be a domain. Let us set up the domain using Windows “Active Directory Setup” wizard. Start by clicking Start -> Administrative Tools -> Configure Your Server Wizard. When the window appears, click Next, then Next again, and wait while Windows intelligently detects your network settings. Now, a rather long list of possible services should appear. For now, we are interested in implementing only one – Domain Controller (Active Directory). Choose likewise and press Next. Press Next to open the Active Directory wizard.

When the wizard appears, press Next. (Has anybody noticed a common theme here?) Choose “Domain controller for a new domain” and press Next. This sets up a brand new domain and is generally what you want to do. Next, choose “Domain in a new forest.” Although the terms tree, domain, and forest may be somewhat foreign to you, they are simply organizational levels of domains – the highest level is a forest, followed by a tree, and finally the domain sits below the tree. For our purposes, we want to create one independent domain, and that is marked by creating a Domain in a new forest. Click Next.

Now, it is time to type in the DNS name of your new domain. This can be confusing to some, so here’s how it goes. Just because you type in “www.microsoft.com” as your DNS name DOES NOT necessarily indicate that your computer somehow corresponds to the giant software company’s web site. Rather, the DNS name is more of a useful way of identifying your domain among many. Because most people are not creating their domains to actually handle DNS inquiries, I would recommend choosing a name that is 8 characters or less and rather easy to remember. After you think of this name, I would type “.local” after it to mark that this domain is limited to the local network. An example of a full name, therefore, might be “foxden.local” or any other such name. Click Next.

The next screen asks you what you would like to call your Domain for NetBIOS use. I strongly recommend, for ease of use, calling the domain the same name that you did in the previous screen sans the “.local” ; so, if your domain name is “foxden.local,” I would suggest using “FOXDEN” as your NetBIOS name. Click Next.

The next screen asks you where you would like to store your Active Directory database and log. Microsoft suggests that you store the two on separate disk drives, and I recommend the same. However, this is left to your own discretion. Decide and click Next.

The next part asks you where you would like to put the SYSVOL folder. I recommend using the default suggestion and clicking Next.

You will next see a screen that asks you about “DNS Registration Diagnostics.” I will not spend a large deal of time explaining DNS, but I will tell you that you should let Windows install and configure the DNS server (which is usually the recommended option anyway). Click Next.

The next screen asks you just how much information about your domain you would like to advertise. For security reasons, choose the bottom option UNLESS you have Windows 95/98/ME/NT clients that connect to your domain. Click Next.

You are next asked to choose a Directory Services Restore Mode password. This is a special recovery mode account that allows you to quickly get your domain back running, provided that you can login. Choose a strong password and click Next.

You should be done with the Wizard, so click Finish or click Next until your heart stops.

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mohamed shafi
i really want to know more about windows server 2003.
John Amakali
After I setup my Windows Server 2003, I am failig to log on with the domain server that I have just created. Can somebody tell me how to link other computers (with Win XP and Vista) to my server
Deck Hazen
Hi folks,
I appreciate the effort, but the title is “Windows Server 2003 Setup Guide” and I was hoping for some setup information – not a buyers guide.
Thanks ,
— Deck
Brian Souder
This was not a bad beginner’s article. In fact, it is the first one that explained the domain name in AD setup. I was really confused by this initially. There was nothing saying you could have yourcompanydomain.com or yourcompany.local and what the differences were. It REALLY pissed me off when the books would all say (Use Appropriate Server Info) for that section. How was I supposed to know what was appropriate on my first install. You might want to even expand that a little. You should do a follow on or expansion for the DHCP, DNS, and WINS as well. This can be confusing as well, and in an XP or Vista environment, you would be using them.
To John’s comment – You need to add the workstation to the Domain. I am assuming you got into the server just fine. On one of the workstations, go to My Computer and right click, and then select Properties. Now click on the Computer Name tab. Near the bottom right of the window select change. At the top will be the comnputer name, and at the bottom will be Workgroup and Domain. Change the radio button to Domain, and then enter the name of the domain you created. If you picked YourCompany.local in the setup, enter YourCompany, and select OK. You will be prompted for the domain administrator credentials. Administrator and what ever you set the server administrator password to. You will get a series of dialogue boxes you hiy ok to. After the last one, you will need to restart the workstation. When it restartes, you can use Administrator, the domain administrator password, and there will be a new drop down box. It will probably says “This Computer”. Change it to the domain you picked, and then login. You are now on the domain. If you followed the tutorial and setup user accounts, you need to add those domain users to the workstation to login as the user. The user effectively has no right at the moment to the workstation. If you setup a user named “userone”, we add them to the workstation as follows. Right click My Computer and select Manage. Select Local User and Groups. The Users folder is “LOCAL” user accounts – meaning only on that workstation. So you want to select GROUPS. You can select the level of user rights and add them to that group. generally you do not want your users above Power User, but this is dictated by the software you use, and the level of control you want the user to have. There are tons of articles on this stuff. So let’s click Power Users. In the new window, select Add, and in the white open space, start typing “userone” (this is just an example name – you might use first initial and last name such as jsmith – or – john.smith – etc — again – there are tons of articles on naming schemes for users and workstations). So in our example, we start typing “userone” – we can actually type “user” and then use the check name button to the right, and it should either find the user or give you a list. For example if we had userone, usertwo, userthree – it would find all three in the list because they all start with user. It would be waiting for you to pick which one. So pick the user, and it should appear in the white window where you were typing. Be careful if you have a local user account with the same name, it can get confused. You see people using things like John for user names. They have no place on a domain – so don’t do it. It also gives you the chance to migrate the user’s profile to their new domain account profile you are going to create the first time you login as the user. So once you have the use in, hit ok until your boxes are gone, and then logoff as the Domain Administrator. Now change the user name to the user you picked. In our example it was userone. Login with the password. The first login will take a while as it sets up the profile. You are now on the domain as a user you setup.
Deck hanzen – dude – you have to clieck the next button at the bottom of the article. In his defense – i did not see it at first either. You guys need to put space between the buttons. Keep up the good work though.
Brian Souder
Oops – made a typo in there when I was changing a few things around. WINS for a mixed NT, 98 with XP and Vista.
kiet
beginner question.. what is the difference between windows server 2003 and r2?
after i installed windows server 2003, what should i do next?
tnx

Cody Oebel
Google it =:) as there is way to much to list on that one, but in general 03 is much the same as r2 !

Cody Oebel
I thought this tutorial for an entry level tutorial was laid out quite well. I pass this tutorial to others who are curious or have questions on a base level how a domain is set up. In my opinion this tutorial is 5\5 stars. For those who commented about the websites format and lay out; I agree about the previous-Next Page link. Whoever href’d that was in a hurry and it probably was not at focus, but it makes up for such a nit picky code eye pain by the one of a kind windows server 2003 tutorial. This gentlemen really took his time of the day to paint the bigger picture in a “for Dummies” level tutorial. If you have been working as a desktop technician pushing images to workstations, building batch scripts and been using AD users and Computers snap in with limited rights to AD and always wanted to grasp the true understanding of how your jobs network operates this tutorial teaches you how you would set it up. The rest of the gaps were clearly stated “Out Of Scope”, thus issues that go to mind such as security policy settings, and all the in’s and out’s of security options one could do would have taken way to long. A great job here was done, and if anyone has written a tutorial you know the temptation to want to deviate and go on tangents explaining things more in depth while at the same time getting further off track of the focus of the tutorials direction. He kept great control here with that, and this tutorial litterally brought it together for me. My mind goes crazy on what I want to do at work with this information in mind. Most of us who work desktop support jobs have what it takes to engineer a domain, and could code in share point scripts to write credentials to apps, and so forth, but because were not MCSE certified we dont get to touch the DC’s. “In my case that is” . I recently took a job where “I” am the “ADMIN” over the domain for a very small business, and with freedom to do as I wish on the domain I created with only but 60 machines and users I am advancing allot. We use a cisco router here and a business line broadband modem since I am the sould systems engineer per say I am also responsible for it. So I play with subnetting and so forth in my free time, and every day is not a boring day all because of this tutorial which helped me get the job! Every day I am setting policies, locking down users machines. The boss\Owner who didnt have a domain setup and each phone agent was just taking calls, and had an independent machine with full admin rights didnt know any better. I made suggestions and told him we were going to need to domain this work environment and sold him on letting me go to Dell’s website, bought a server with a packaged lisence deal. Then I setup 3 other child servers, one as a file server, printer server, and using newer workstations with the w2k3 OS for the roles. I build scripts in c++ to do profile backups etc… my days flyyyyyyy it’s almost not even a job to me, but a do something I love and get paid type of work. This tutorial being primarily text based versus youtube video’s really put the confidence in me enough to present the benefits to the owner to make him buy a $3k server package. It was all worth it to him once I setup policies that allowed him to stealthly RDC into his employee’s workstations and see what they are doing when he wanted. I am doing research on Magic Jack type phone setups to save the token phone setup he is paying out the nose for on a monthly basis. My ideal is to have a very cost efficient call system in which phone calls can be recorded and monitored and even be remotely monitored real time to kind of do some call quality. All of these measures are being coerced by the knowledge I have and how it can save money and make business operations more efficient ALL THANKS TO GOOD LAID OUT TUTORIALS LIKE THIS ONE!!! It’s only until now that I wrote a comment on this tutorial I should have done so when I first read it.
Joe
I can’t see the link for the next page of the tutorial. Where is it?
Liebo
Guide is excellent however please correct the images. They are currently broken due to a script error.
Liebo
Any chance you could fix the images and also expand on roaming profiles?
Thanks
Spanishgirl
Cant say much for this posting its of little or no use to anyone setting up sever 2003 like my dad used to tell me if you dount know what ur talking about just shut up and listen to some one thats done it instead of waisting every ones time good intensions are like ass holes everyones got one
TWATFACE
Bla Bla Bla why don’t you suck my dick???