How to Join Windows Server Core to Domain

Every windows server whenever built & configured in infrastructure are joined to company domain. So in case of windows server core as well there is simple steps on how you should join windows server core to domain of your company.

Featured Sponsor

Active directory plays very critical role in every organization which allows you to join your windows servers & other infrastructure components or devices to domain. So that you can use your domain credentials to login. In order to login using domain credentials your server must be joined to your domain. Joining domain to the server is one time activity where you will use your domain admin credentials to join server into the domain.

In case of windows server core as well you can easily join it to domain using sconfig utility.

So let’s see How to join windows server core to domain:

Step 1:
Login to your Windows Server core first.
You will get the command prompt.
Type “sconfig” & press Enter.

Step 2:
You will see server configuration wizard is opened. Where you can perform some basic operations in the windows server core.
Now we want to join windows server core to domain.
For Domain/Workgroup we need to enter number 1. So provide number 1 & press Enter.

Step 3:
Provide where you want to join your server domain or workgroup.
You can simply enter D for Domain or W for Workgroup.
Provide D & press Enter.

Step 4:
Provide Domain name you want to join your server to.
Provide domain admin username or username who has permission to join server to domains.
Press Enter to continue.

Step 5:
You will be asked for the password.
Type the password of the username provided.
Password you type won’t be visible to you.
So you can simply type the password & press Enter.

Step 6:
You will be asked if you want to change your computer name before joining to domain.
If you want you can click Yes or click No & continue.

Step 7:
Windows server domain joining requires server restart.
So you will be asked to restart the server to join the windows server core to domain.
Click Yes to restart.

Once the server is restarted you can press Ctrl-Alt-Del to unlock the server core.

Now you will be asked for the password. This is local administrator login.
To use the domain user login press ESC here.

Now again you need to press ESC & choose other user to login as a domain user.

You can provide your domain user credentials here to login to the windows server core.

Now you can type sconfig after login to go to the utility.
Here you can see that our server is joined to the domain successfully.

That’s it, Using this way you can easily Join Windows Server Core to Domain.

Note: In this post we have used Windows Server 2019 core edition.

Checkout our Post on How to Install Windows Server 2019 Core Step by Step ?

That’s it for Today Friends. I Hope you liked reading this post & If you find anything more to be added or removed feel free to write it in our comments. If you find it useful You are Feel free to share this on social media to help others & spread knowledge.
If you have any query on any thing you are free to write it in our comments section & we will make sure to provide you the better solution as soon as possible.

Join Our LinkedIn Group to get Fast updates about our posts : Mastering VMware.
Checkout our Facebook Group for discussions & more.
You can also Like & Share our Facebook Page for Latest Updates.