How to Deploy Nano Server as a Virtual Machine

In this part of Nano Server Deployment series I will talk about How to Deploy Nano Server as a Virtual Machine.

To be able to deploy Nano server in VM you will need to download Nano Server pre-built virtual hard disk (VHD) file from Download Nano Server from Microsoft

OR you will need to extract Windows Server 2016 ISO file to a folder, copy Nano Server folder and start from there.

I will show you how to deploy Nano Server from Windows Server 2016 ISO file.

First what we need to do is to mount Windows Server 2016 ISO file. When you open it up you will see that there is a Nano server folder in it. You will need to copy that folder on some location where you can access it. I will copy it to my C:.

When you open that folder you will be able to see:

NanoServerImageGenerator Folder – This is a modul we need to implement or add to windows 10/2016 so that we can perform actions that are necessary for generating Nano Server Images

Packages Folder – Packages are roles and features which you can apply to Nano server (example DNS, IIS, Hyper-V)

NanoServer.wim file –  contains all the codes for deploying Nano server. This will be our starting point for all Nano server instances.

Let’s begin this process by opening Powershell (As Admin) and go through some of the commands we need to enter in.

Let’s start with setting up execution policy

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Next what we need to do is to import in the module (which is stored in NanoServerImageGenerator). This will give us all the different commands we need for creating Nano server image

Import-Module C:\NanoServer\NanoServerImageGenerator\NanoServerImageGenerator.psm1

No we have the access to those commands which are neccessary in order to manage and build Nano Server image. Let’s create our image by typing

New-NanoServerImage -Edition Datacenter -DeploymentType Guest -MediaPath C:\ -BasePath C:\NanoServer\NanoServer1 -TargetPath C:\NanoServer\NanoServer1\nanoserver1.vhdx -ComputerName NanoServer1

 

 

When we hit enter, it should create vhdx file out of the .wim file that exists in NanoServer folder. As we creating this vhdx file the original .wim file itself is not modified in performing this process.

When it’s done it will provide us with the log file that include info about what we just created. If you go to C:\NanoServer you will be able to see a new folder (NanoServer1)

We can now import in this vhdx file to use it as a Hyper-V virtual machine.

The final step of the process is to boot our VM and take a look what we actually built so far.

It will take a few seconds and you will find your self in front of (what Microsoft refers to) as the Recovery Console

Type in the admin credentials and login

That’s it.

In the next part of Nano Server Deployment I will talk about how to manage Nano Server Remotely.

Stay Tuned!!!

Cheers,

Nedim