🌐 Languages

🇬🇧 English (current) | 🇫🇷 Français

Full unattended deployment of a Windows Server domain controller (ADDS + DNS + DHCP) from a single graphical interface.

Setting up a domain controller by hand chains together repetitive steps interrupted by reboots (network → roles → promotion → DNS/DHCP). AutoDC gathers all the input in a single window, then runs the rest on its own while handling the reboots. Ideal for quickly building and rebuilding DCs in a lab on VMs.

• All in one pass, no intervention after the input (reboots handled, automatic resume).
• Windows Server wizard-style interface, with built-in validation and a command preview before execution.
• Reusable configuration (import/export); passwords are never stored in clear text.

• Windows Server 2019 / 2022 / 2025 only (PowerShell 5.1+).
• Meant for labs, not for a critical production environment.
• The server reboots automatically → run it from the VM console, not over RDP.
• AutoDC installs the DC but does not populate the domain (OUs, users, groups) — that is the job of its companion tool ADFlow.

1. Copy Start-AutoDC.ps1 to the server, then right-click → Run with PowerShell (it elevates to administrator on its own).
2. Fill in the tabs (Server → Network → Roles → ADDS/DNS/DHCP → Prerequisites) and click Launch.
3. Let it run: the configuration is applied, the server reboots once or twice and finishes on its own. A window shows the live progress at logon.

# From an administrator console, in the script's folder:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Start-AutoDC.ps1

⚠️ The server reboots during deployment: run it from the VM console (a network reconfiguration can drop an RDP session).

The deployment goes through several phases that survive reboots thanks to self-cleaning scheduled tasks:

Interactive  →  (rename + reboot)  →  Promote (ADDS promotion + reboot)  →  Configure (DNS + DHCP)

Secrets (DSRM, domain admin) are encrypted with DPAPI (machine scope) for the duration of the reboots, then wiped — never in clear text on disk nor in the exported configuration file.

Taeckens.M — see also ADFlow, the companion tool that populates the domain (OUs, users, groups…) from a simple definition file.