Question
Your network contains an Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain. The domain contains two domain controllers named DC1 and DC2. DC2 runs on a Hyper-V virtual machine.
You plan to deploy a new domain controller by cloning DC2.
You need to create the CustomDCCloneAllowList.xml and the DCCloneConfig.xml files for DC2.
In which folder should you save the files?
- A. C:\Windows
- B. C:\Windows\Setup
- C. C:\
- D. C:\Windows\NTDS Correct
Explanation
When a cloned virtual domain controller starts, the cloning process looks for DCCloneConfig.xml in a fixed order: the DSA Working Directory, then %windir%\NTDS, then the root of removable read/write media. It searches for CustomDCCloneAllowList.xml in the folder named by the AllowListFolder registry value, then the DSA Working Directory, then %windir%\NTDS, then the root of removable media. These paths can't be changed. By default the DSA Working Directory is %windir%\NTDS, which is also where New-ADDCCloneConfigFile writes the file when no -Path is given. Both files should therefore be saved in C:\Windows\NTDS on DC2. C:\, C:\Windows and C:\Windows\Setup are not locations the cloning process checks.
