With newer version of Windows server, Microsoft is trying to move away from desktop style management and moving to a command line setup that is managed remotely using Windows Admin Center. I was setting up a new Windows Server 2019 Technical Preview server for testing and decided to do a post on how to set up and domain join server core.
The overall install process is the same as previous version of Windows. Once the OS is installed you will be prompted with a command prompt window.
This is to set the local admin password for the server. 
Once the password has been set you will be brought to a standard command prompt screen. Type sconfig to start the server configuration screen. This is where you will configure most of the initial setup options like Server Name, domain join, Static IP …….
Select option 2 to set the server name.
Select option 1 to domain join the server. Restart server after the domain join completes 
Next I enabled remote management so I could install feature remote. Select option 4 to configure remote management. 
If you want to leave the server on DHCP you can. I decided to add a static IP to do this select option 8.
Select the adapter that will have the static IP assigned. 
Select option 2 to set DNS servers. 
To manage the server either install Windows Admin Center or go to another 2012 / 2016 server and add to server manager. Once there you can right click on the server to add roles / Features and other management tools. 
