Everything the Admin and Domain-Admin editors write down ends up in two kinds of files: one global settings.ini, and one .ini profile per Active Directory domain. A domain profile always takes priority over the global value — this page documents what's in each.
The reference configuration (SQL Server 2022 Enterprise) resolves to these letters unless a domain profile overrides them:
| InstallDrive | F — SQL Server binaries (Program Files) |
| DataDrive | G — user database files (.mdf, .ndf) |
| LogDrive | H — transaction logs (.ldf) |
| TempDrive | I — TempDB files |
| BackupDrive | F — backups, and the system-database directory alongside the install |
Single-drive servers are deliberately not a config value — a server that only has one data drive doesn't use the same letter across an entire domain (sometimes F, sometimes G). Instead it's a per-run choice: the "Single drive" checkbox in the wizard's disk-layout section, or -SingleDrive <Letter> on the CLI, applied before any individual drive overrides.
The baseline defaults: default version/edition/instance name/collation, which SQL Server versions are offered, which editions are valid per version (SQL 2025 uses different edition names than 2019/2022), and the fallback collation if no domain profile applies.
What gets passed straight to Install-DbaInstance: feature list (Engine, FullText, IS, ...), instant file initialization, the initial sysadmin account, TempDB's starting file count/size, and whether TCP/Named Pipes/SQL Browser are enabled.
Whether BUILTIN\Administrators is removed as a SQL login after install (Standard = true by default), with the same safety check as SA obfuscation: never remove it if no other active sysadmin exists yet. A domain profile can override this per domain.
What runs after the engine is up: monitoring account setup, Splunk Universal Forwarder configuration, company SQL scripts (run alphabetically from a configured folder), and the Qualys vulnerability-scanner monitoring account for regulated environments.
Which components (SSRS, SSAS, SSMS, SSIS, TDP, Power BI Report Server) and client drivers (JDBC, ODBC, OLEDB, DB2) are offered by default, and their installation source paths.
BasePort for the default instance; named instances get BasePort + (N × PortIncrement). Applied after install via Set-sqmTcpPort.
Checks that run before anything is installed: NTFS block size on the configured drives (Format64kCheck), a manual-snapshot reminder dialog, and — in environments that need it — an AD group-membership check that can block the install outright.
Where the two PowerShell module dependencies come from: a share path first, falling back to the PowerShell Gallery if the share isn't reachable. [GitSources] controls an optional one-time git clone when the shared source structure is first set up — not used during the SQL Server install itself, so target servers without internet access stay fully supported.