How do you tell whether a Server Core installations of Windows Server 2008 is a Domain Controller? Using the DomainRole property of the ComputerSystem class is a useful and fast way to check whether a Server Core installation of Windows Server is a Domain Controller, whether it’s domain-joined and whether it holds the PDCe FSMO role. The command is simple: wmic.exe ComputerSystem get DomainRole , but the output is puzzling as it returns a numeric value (fist pic), which you can decipher using the table in second pic. In our case, the returned value is 5, deciphers to Primary Domain Controller (PDCe) Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) role.