For the most part, you're going to find it pretty easy to deal with. But there are two things to be aware of:

1) Windows does not have the VMWare Paravirtual storage drivers loaded by default. You'll want to use the LSI Logic SAS driver if you don't have an image/ISO that has that driver loaded. While the Paravirtual driver is the high performance/low overhead recommendation from VMWare, you'll want to get into custom deployment/MDT/SCCM land to get that to play nice on install.

2) Use the VMXNet3 network adapter. It won't show up until you install the VMWare Tools, but that won't prevent an ISO-based install. It supports 10 gigabit speeds, and saves on all sorts of communication overhead.

3) If you use multiple partitions, place each of them on their own VMDK (except the system reserved partition, it'll just be at the start of the C: disk).

If you have someone who is good with SCCM or MDT, they can help you get the paravirtual and VMXnet3 drivers loaded. Everything else should be just like you see in physical server land.

On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 9:42 AM Resotko, John <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Good morning all,

I’m taking the plunge, and trying to bring up my first Windows server in my VMWare environment. To date, I’ve mostly built Linux servers in my VM, so I’m sure there are some Windows pitfalls I’m not aware of. Can anyone point me to a good guide for bringing up a Win 2008 R2 and/or Win 2012 R2 server as a VMWare host? Any advice would be appreciated.

John Resotko

Assistant Director, Systems Administration and Support

Michigan State University College of Law

648 N. Shaw Lane, Room 208 Law Building

East Lansing, MI 48842-1300

email: [log in to unmask]

phone: 517-432-6836

fax: 517-432-6861

web: http://www.law.msu.edu/

MSU IT Council , Law College representative and board member: https://tech.msu.edu/itcouncil/index.php