Once the deployment of a new server has been planned the installation itself is a pretty elementary
task.
Unlike servers from long ago the installation of Windows servers today only ask a small handful of questions.
And if the answers are known in advance installation is pretty smooth.
If you're prepared with the language preference the product key and whether or not you need the desktop
experience the only configuration question that you'll be asked is the size and the placement of the
install partition and that size can even be modified after the fact.
If you need to the barebones requirement here is that you should have at least 32 gigabytes for the
install partition.
As we mentioned before that minimum doesn't even account for the desktop experience.
That's only for core which is now considered the default install for Windows servers.
Best practice is to consider starting at double or more the stated minimum requirement.
Keep in mind that you're going to be installing various roles and that you want this server to run for
several years so there's going to need to be room for whatever security and feature updates may be released
over that time here's a fresh install that I completed on a server in my test lab on a virtual machine
with 8 gig of ram dynamically expanding.
You can see that right now it's using three quarters of that and this server is literally doing nothing.
That 2 gig of ram really is a bare bones minimum I installed this like I said and a virtual machine.
I granted it eight virtual processors and this 8 gig of ram and it took all of 15 minutes to complete
including the reboot at the end.
In fact it felt like the reboot was the longest part of the process.
Completing that install is only the first step to getting a new server ready before you add any rolls
share any folders or install any applications you need to assign the server an identity.
And this includes two things the network address and the computer or hostname.
Just like in previous versions of Windows server the server manager loads by default and just as in
previous versions of Windows server you can select this line next to ether net and get the legacy interface
for changing the IP address and network configuration of any interface in the machine.
I'm going to go ahead and assign this an address using tools that have been around for several versions
of Windows and Windows Server.
I'm going to assign it a static IP address
including the default gateway and DNS information provided to me by my network administration team
assigning new IP configuration even adding or removing IP version four or six or switching from dynamic
to static.
None of these changes require a reboot.
I like to get as many things done as possible before a reboot so that all of those settings can be applied
as the system comes up again.
So let me go ahead and save those changes.
And this is on my company network.
And yes I do want my server to be visible to other machines so I'm gonna go ahead and say yes and I
can close out of this panel and now the next step of giving the computer a name.
This can also be done from the server manager but I want to show you a different path.
I'm going to open power shell and if you haven't started using power shell yet it's time.
Especially if you're considering semi-annual releases of Windows Server or if you go with the default
installation of Windows Server formerly known as core where you don't have this desktop experience with
a server manager from the start menu.
Here is power shell.
I'm going to right click it so that I can run it as administrator if I've logged into the machine as
the administrator account.
This extra step may not be necessary but it's a pattern that I've gotten used to and it allows me to
always have the access I need regardless of how I logged in to start so here in power shell let me go
ahead and maximize this window the process of renaming the server.
I like to do it in two steps.
The first is to type the command lit hostname.
This gives me the automatically assigned computer name.
That's not something that I want to have to remember or be responsible for typing accurately.
So I'm going to select it and use control C on the keyboard to copy that information now to rename the
computer.
The power shall command lit for that is rename computer
and that's the basic syntax in power shall we first start with a verb.
In this case rename.
And then we have a noun computer.
Most power shall command.
Let's have a verb noun construct.
So we're going to rename a computer.
First we need to tell it which computer we're going to rename the parameter computer name.
And now I'm going to hit control V to paste the current computer name.
That's the computer we want to rename and we want to assign it a new name on our network.
Let's go ahead and name this server 1
naming conventions are very important.
And as you bring up new machines and configure them in your environment consider using server names
that will be meaningful to your users in very large organizations.
Those names might include something about the function and the location of the server in smaller to
medium size organizations.
They may be named after the task that they perform or some people even use characters from TV series
or movies that represent a task being done by that server.
But make sure those decisions are deliberate when I go ahead and hit enter.
You'll notice that despite getting a warning that I'm going to have to restart that change was done
really quickly.
All we need to do now is reboot and that can be done using the shut down command using the R parameter
for restart and that should take care of it.
If this server is also going to be part of an existing active directory domain you should take care
of joining it to the domain as soon as it reboots.
Then and only then will you have a fresh install of Windows Server 20 19 that is ready to be put to
work.