Active Directory Administration Cookbook

Promoting a domain controller using Windows PowerShell

For the Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell, Microsoft has decided to take a slightly different route. Instead of using a single PowerShell cmdlet to promote a domain controller, there are three separate PowerShell cmdlets for each of the three scenarios, as presented as part of the Active Directory Domain Services Configuration Wizard:

Scenario	PowerShell cmdlet
Add a domain controller to an existing domain	Install-ADDSDomainController
Add a new domain to an existing forest	Install-ADDSDomain
Add a new forest	Install-ADDSForest

To add a domain controller to an existing domain, the simplest script would look like that shown in the following example:

Install-WindowsFeature ...