Windows Server 2008 R2 : Deploying and Using Windows Virtualization - Installing a Guest Operating System Session

Gathering the Components Needed for a Guest Session

When creating a guest operating system, the administrator needs to make sure they have all of the components needed to begin the installation. The components needed are as follows:

• Operating system media— A copy of the operating system installation media is required for the installation of the guest image. The media could be either a DVD or an ISO image of the media disc itself.

• License key— During the installation of the operating system software, if you are normally prompted to enter in the license key for the operating system, you should have a copy of the license key available.

Other things you should do before starting to install a guest operating system on the virtual server system:

• Guest session configuration settings— You will be prompted to answer several core guest session configuration setting options, such as how much RAM you want to allocate for the guest session, how much disk space you want to allocate for the guest image, and so on. Either jump ahead to the next section on “Beginning the Installation of the Guest Session” so you can gather up the information you’ll need to answer the questions you’ll be asked, or be prepared to answer the questions during the installation process.

• Host server readiness— If you will be preplanning the answers to the questions that you’ll be asked, make sure that the host system has enough RAM, disk space, and so on to support the addition of your guest session to the virtual server system. If your requirements exceed the physical capacity of the server, stop and add more resources (memory, disk space, and so on) to the server before beginning the installation of the guest operating system.

Beginning the Installation of the Guest Session

After you are ready to begin the installation of the guest operating system, launch the guest operating system installation wizard. This is done by doing the following:

1.	From the Actions pane, choose New, Virtual Machine. The New Virtual Machine Wizard will launch.
2.	Click Next to continue past the initial Welcome screen.
3.	Give your virtual machine a name that will be descriptive of the virtual guest session you are creating, such as AD Global Catalog Server, or Exchange 2010 Client Access Server 1, or ISA Proxy Server.
4.	If you had set the default virtual machine folder location where guest images are stored, the new image for this virtual machine will be placed in a subfolder of that default folder. However, if you need to select a different location where the image files should be stored, click Store the Virtual Machine in a Different Location, and select Browse to choose an existing disk directory or to create a new directory where the image file for this guest session should be stored. Click Next to continue.
5.	Enter in the amount of RAM you want to be allocated to this guest image (in megabytes), and then click Next.
6.	Choose the network segment to which you want this guest image to be initially connected. Click Next. Note You can also choose Not Connected during this virtual machine creation process and change the network segment option at a later date.
7.	The next option enables you to create a new virtual hard disk or use an existing virtual hard disk for the guest image file. Creating a new virtual hard disk creates a VHD disk image in the directory you choose. By default, a dynamic virtual disk image size setting is set to 127GB. The actual file itself will only be the size of the data in the image (potentially 4GB or 8GB to start, depending on the operating system) and will dynamically grow up to the size indicated in this setting. Alternately, you can choose an existing hard disk image you might have already created (including an older image you might have created in Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Microsoft Virtual Server 2005), or you can choose to select a hard disk image later. To use a fixed-size disk, select the last option and create the virtual disk later from the Virtual Machine Settings window. The options for this configuration are shown in Figure 1. Click Next to continue. Figure 1. Creating a new virtual hard disk. Note Dynamic VHD performance in Windows Server 2008 R2 has been greatly enhanced, essentially equaling that of fixed disks. This means you can now seriously consider using dynamic disks instead of fixed disks in production environments.
8.	The next option, shown in Figure 2, allows for the installation of an operating system on the disk image you created in the previous step. You can choose to install an operating system at a later time, install an operating system from a bootable CD/DVD or ISO image file, install an operating system from a floppy disk image, or install an operating system from a network-based installation server (such as Windows Deployment Services). Typically, operating system source discs are on either a physical disc or ISO image file, and choosing a CD or DVD or an associated ISO image file will allow for the operating system to be installed on the guest image. Select your option, and then click Next to continue. Figure 2. Selecting the operating system installation options.
9.	Review the summary of the options you have selected and either click Finish if the settings you’ve chosen are fine, or click Previous to go back and make changes. Click Finish to create the new virtual machine.

Completing the Installation of the Guest Session

When the new virtual machine is started, the guest operating system installation will proceed to install just like the process of installing the operating system on a physical system. Typically, at the end of an operating system installation, the guest session will restart and bring the session to a logon prompt. Log on to the guest operating system and configure the guest operating system as you would any other server system. This typically has you do things such as the following:

The installation of the guest operating system typically requires yet another reboot, and the operating system will be installed and operational.