Users Guide

a. After reboot, the Windows Server 2016 Essentials dashboard is displayed. Click Change system date and time settings to

select the date, time, and time zone settings for your server, and then click Next.

The Company Information screen is displayed.

b. On the Company Information screen, type the appropriate details for the company name and the server name.

Click Next to go to the Create Network Admin account screen.

c. Create the network administrator with required account name and password. On the next screen, select Use recommended

settings, and then click Next to complete the configuration.

The system reboots and configures to essentials.

13. After reboot, the system is locked and you can log in to the system by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

14. Type the administrator password, and then press Enter to log in to the system.

The operating system installation is complete.

NOTE: After you log in to the system, you can use the Server Manager Dashboard to configure and manage different

roles and features in the operating system.

Partitioning a drive

Drive partitioning allows you to divide a physical hard drive into multiple virtual hard drives. Each virtual hard drive is called a partition.

There are two types of partition schemes:

• Master Boot Record scheme

• GUID Partition Table scheme

Master boot record scheme

Master boot record (MBR) scheme is a legacy partition scheme that can be used by most operating systems. The total data storage

space of a computer hard drive is divided into at a maximum four primary partitions.

GUID partition table scheme

GUID partition table (GPT) scheme is a new standard for the layout of the partition table on a physical hard drive. It is part of the

extensible firmware interface (EFI) standard, which is a replacement for the system BIOS.

Choosing between partition schemes

NOTE:

To change your partition scheme from BIOS to UEFI and vice versa during POST, press F2, select Boot Settings,

and press Enter. Change the value of Boot Mode to BIOS or UEFI. For more information, follow steps 1–8 in the Install

Windows Server 2016 by using the Dell LifeCycle Controller section.

The main considerations for choosing between the partition schemes are:

• Hard drive size

• Operating system version

• Software tools used in the operating system

The MBR partition scheme is used across older versions of the Microsoft operating systems. MBR partitioning scheme supports a volume

size smaller than 2 TB.

NOTE: GPT boot (UEFI boot) is supported only on 11

generation of the PowerEdge servers or later.

NOTE: Dell EMC recommends that you use the GPT partition scheme as it is more flexible, supports larger hard drive

sizes, and has some features and recovery mechanisms that are not available in the MBR partition scheme.

For more information about partitions and volumes, see partitions and volumes at Technet.microsoft.com. For information about GPT,

see the Windows and GPT frequently asked questions at Microsoft.com.

Installing and reinstalling Microsoft Windows Server 2016