Windows Server 2012 R2 Core Setup

In this article I will show you the commands I usually use in order to configure a newly set up Windows Server 2012 R2 system. I know there are may other ways to do this like sconfig or corefig but I prefer native Powershell command.

Let's start by renaming the computer with the command below:

Rename-Computer -NewName Server1

A small note here, the name of the computer will not change until you reboot. If you want to reboot right after the cmdlet above completes just add the -Restart parameter.

Next, I'm going to set the product key:

slmgr -ipk productkeystring

After the step above I like to configure the network settings. Let's start with renaming the network adapters. That way it is easier to tell which adapter is connected to which network:

Rename-NetAdapter -NewName LAB_Data

After renaming the adapters, it's time to assign some IP addresses!
New-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 10.0.0.12 ` 
 -InterfaceAlias LAB_Data ` 
 -DefaultGateway 10.0.0.1 ` 
 -PrefixLength 24

In case you decide to use a network team, you have to create it first and then add the IP address to the team interface. You can create network teams just like: 

New-NetLBFOTeam -Name LAB_Data_Team `
 -TeamMembers LAB_Data_1,LAB_Data_2 `
 -TeamingMode SwitchIndependent `
 -LoadBalancingAlgorithm Dynamic

The options for the TeamingMode and LoadBalancingAlgorithm vary on your implementation for the network and the role of the server.

Now that we're all done with the network teams and IP addresses, let's assign the DNS server addresses:

Set-DNSClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias LAB_Data_1 `
 -ServerAddresses 10.0.0.11,10.0.0.12

Again, if you're using a team you have to assign the DNS server settings to the team and not the interfaces.

Well, this covers the first step of the Windows Server Core setup, I'll continue with the firewall and Remote Desktop setup on the next article.

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