Microsoft Server 2019 Essentials

Many IT teams still running Windows Server 2019 depend on a few senior admins who understand how the domain, Group Policy, storage, and Hyper-V hosts fit together. Builds are often manual and wizard-driven, which makes them hard to repeat. This course gives the whole team a shared, standardized baseline.

Role fit: The course is built on administrator-level material and rated Beginner. It suits new IT Practitioners starting a sysadmin path. It also suits experienced admins catching up on Server 2019 features, such as Windows Admin Center and running Hyper-V management tools on Server Core.

Time investment: The course runs about 13 hours across 11 skills. Most learners can finish in two to three weeks at a few hours per week.

Change-management notes: The training favors automation and standardization: unattended installs, PowerShell remoting from a Windows 10 management box, AGDLP group design, and OU-based Group Policy. Team Leads should expect learners to propose scripting for manual tasks. Plan time to review those proposals against your own change standards. This is skills training, not exam prep.

How CBT Nuggets supports it: Learners build Server 2019 skills in pre-loaded virtual labs. They also work through a troubleshooting lab on a deliberately broken network with scenario-based practice, so your team can build confidence without risk to production.

IT teams take this training to run Windows Server 2019 with less guesswork and more repeatability. Learners build a Server 2019 network from scratch in virtual labs, from installation to troubleshooting a fully broken network, so the skills carry straight into production.

• Faster, consistent server builds: Your team moves past manual wizard-driven installs to unattended installations. They also perform in-place upgrades of down-level Server 2016 machines, which supports standardized rollouts and less rework.
• Shorter outage triage: Practitioners learn a clear diagnostic path for connectivity issues. They separate single-client problems from DHCP server failures, recognize APIPA addresses, use tools like ping and ipconfig, and check DNS with nslookup.
• Healthier identity and policy management: Admins design OU hierarchies and understand Group Policy inheritance and LSDOU precedence, so settings land where intended.
• Automation that scales: Teams use PowerShell remoting, including Enter-PSSession and Invoke-Command, from a Windows 10 management box. They script Hyper-V setup and tune VM resources with dynamic memory, which cuts repetitive console work and makes configurations repeatable.

The closing TSHOOT lab challenges put learners in realistic failure scenarios across networking and Active Directory, Hyper-V, and PowerShell. Team Leads can use these challenges to confirm each practitioner is ready for day-to-day server operations.

Knowledge

• Windows Server 2019 installation options (Server Core vs. Desktop Experience), hardware requirements, and when unattended installs replace manual, non-repeatable wizard clicks
• How in-place upgrades from Server 2016 and machine activation work
• How DHCP and DNS failures show up on the network, including APIPA addressing and why DNS is often part of connectivity issues
• Active Directory structure: users, groups, OU hierarchy design, group scopes, and the AGDLP model, plus the replication trade-offs of universal groups
• How Group Policy is processed (LSDOU), including inheritance and precedence
• Hyper-V fundamentals, VM components, and how dynamic memory protects host resources

Ability

• Install, configure, and upgrade Windows Server 2019, then assign roles such as file server and domain controller and join machines to a domain
• Administer servers remotely from a Windows 10 management box with Windows Admin Center and PowerShell Remoting (Enter-PSSession, Invoke-Command)
• Troubleshoot DHCP with Server Manager, PowerShell, the DHCP Management Console, and ipconfig; troubleshoot DNS with nslookup; and check AD health with event logs
• Create, link, deploy, verify, and troubleshoot Group Policy objects across OUs
• Stand up a Hyper-V host on Server Core and create and configure VMs through the GUI and PowerShell
• Write documented, reusable PowerShell scripts, then use them to diagnose and fix a broken Windows network in hands-on troubleshooting challenges