How to login to new AD forest/domain the first time

Question

In a test environment we have deployed a new domain controller in a new forest on Windows Server Core 2022. After promoting the DC and rebooting we are unable to log in to the DC. Since there are no users created yet we are trying servername\administrator as the login name with the DSRM password as the password but it won't take it. Is there something else we should be entering for logon? This is our first attempt at running anything on 2022 Core so we are learning as we go.

Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

Hello Kenny Stern,

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

As I understand, you promote a Windows server 2022 Core as a Domain Controller, it is only one Domain Controller in the domain/forest, am I right?

If so, before a Domain Controller is promoted to that role, it is a simple workgroup (standalone) server and has a local Administrator account and a local Administrators group. When you create a domain, those accounts don't go away; they're incorporated into the domain as the domain Administrator account and the domain builtin\Administrators group.

So before this Windows server 2022 Core was promoted as one Domain Controller, I assume you sign in the server using servername\Administrator. And if the domain name of this domain/forest is domain.com, then you can sign in this server using domain\Administrator after it was promoted as one domain controller.

I hope the information above is helpful.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Daisy Zhou

============================================

If the Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.