Step 1. Validate the System Information

Prior to beginning any of the technical work, review the system details to confirm the system will support the intended role and aligns with the defined specifications.

There are a few things we want to confirm prior to getting started. Specifically, we are looking to gather details about the machine and its ability to communicate/interact with the other system components.

The following commands can be used locally on each server/component through a command prompt (aka command line, terminal) session. The command prompt allows for the direct execution/invocation of operations without the need for a GUI or interactive dialogue.

To launch the command prompt, type 'cmd' into the Windows Search bar (depicted above). You may also launch command prompt from File Explorer (aka explorer, Windows Explorer) by typing 'cmd' into the address bar and hitting the 'Enter' key. This will open a command prompt session from the directory File Explorer has expanded.

Once command prompt is open, the following commands can be used to collect important information. Note, the following conventions used below and throughout this document:

• Two (2) backslashes (//) represent a 'comment' or a portion of the code that is not being executed, but is included to assist in understanding.

• When you see something/a bit of information contained within inequality symbols (< >), this represents a user defined input. The text contained within the inequality symbols is intended to specify what information should be provided.

ipconfig 

ping <IPAddress_or_ComputerName_or_DNS>

tracert <IPAddress_or_ComputerName_or_DNS>

systeminfo

nslookup <computer.domain.suffix>

powershell Test-NetConnection -ComputerName <Some.COmputer.Name> -Port <3389>

dxdiag

chkdsk

sfc /scannow

Additional details can be found on this webpage.

If you are interested in a more 'automatic' method, we will setup BGInfo on the next section which collects much of the diagnostic/identifying information on our behalf and represents the information on the machine's desktop as its background.