As the memory become really cheap now, a couple days ago I have updated my laptop memory to 12g. Plus I got my old desktop ,now I decide to build my own SharePoint farm at home. I decide to document the steps to build a simple SharePoint farm. I will use windows server 2008 r2 and VMware.

In the first part of this series of building my own SharePoint farm. I will create my domain controller. Here are the steps to install it:

1. Open the command line by going to run and type CMD and then type dcpromo in the command line.

   The AD Installation wizard will prompt and click next.

2. Click next as shown in the screenshot.

3. Select creates a new domain in a new forest and click next.

 4. Type a domain name (e.g. ybbest.com) and click next.

5.In my case , I select Windows Server 2008 R2 forest Functional level and click next

6. Leave the default and click next.(If you have not make a static IP address , you need to do so now)

 7.You might get scary prompt like the screenshot below , just ignore the message and click Yes.

8.Leave the default settings and click Next

 9.Type a password when you need to restore your Domain

 10.Click Next and restart your computer ,this will install your Domain Controller.