Creating Windows Server 2016 VM on Proxmox

This is fourth article in the series that will end with a proper install of SAP B1 10 on SAP HANA 2.0. The first article was on how to setup a new dedicated Hetzner Server as a base. The second article was on how to install Proxmox on Hetzner server. Third article was on how to install SUSE 15 SP1

In this article we will see how to setup Windows Server 2016 VM on the Promox that we setup earlier. You can skip this is you already have a proper working Windows Server 2016 setup in place.

VM requirements

Depending on your requirements you may allocate different set of resources to the Windows VM for the purposes of this article we are using the VM with following specs:

• Based on the above specs, we create a new VM using the steps similar to those listed in the SUSE Setup Article.

• Make sure to get the latest release of Windows Server 2016 from the Microsoft Evaluation Center which you can then activate using your License key.

Install Process

• While creating the VM, make sure to choose the right ISO image and also Microsoft Windows as Guest OS Type, with 10/2016/2019 as Guest OS Version

• Select Windows Server 2016 Standard (Desktop Experience) version to install

• Choose Custom install

• HDD Select step

• Once Windows Server is installed and has rebooted, you can login by clicking the bottom right button in the noVNC screen of Proxmox

• After login you will see that the Network is not working. If that is the case, right click on the network tray icon, and select Open Network and Sharing Center

• Select Change adapter settings

• Changing Adapter settings

• Change IPv4 properties

• For the properties: IP Address: free IP address from the additional subnet, 100.100.100.34 in this case Netmask: 255.255.255.255 Gateway: Your main IP address, 11.11.11.11 in this case Primary DNS: 8.8.8.8 Secondary DNS: 8.8.4.4

• Warning shown when you try to save the network settings. This can be ignored and you can press Yes

• Wait few minutes, and then Network get enabled

Post installation steps

• First make sure to update Windows Sever and then you can install some useful software to help you further, like:

• Chrome

• WinSCP

• Firewall/Antivirus

Enable Remote Desktop

You can use console of Proxmox for all the GUI related tasks, but for better control, you might find connecting to the server using RemoteDesktop a lot better. Out of the box, after install, Remote Desktop is disabled. You can enable by following the steps below:

• Open Server Manager, click on Local Server, on the right you will see that it shows Remote Desktop as disabled. Click on Disabled to the right of Remote Desktop.

• On the popup that opens, click on the Allow remote connections to this computer, and press Apply

• This is how it looks like with the Remote Desktop is enabled

Antivirus

For extra safety, make sure to install a good antivirus on your server.