Virtualizing my home windows server using ESXi 5.

 Software  No Responses »
Dec 082011
 

Due to having some time on my hands I thought I would set about virtualizing my home server, a Dell Optiplex 280, 2 1TB SATA disks running windows Server 2008 R1, to allow for some testing of different server / client and generally messing about without the need to constantly pull out hard disks and the rest. Here is my process for selecting what turned out to be a good low budget virtualization setup.

Virtualization Software

Seeing as VMWare ESXi 5 is free and I decided to give it a shot. I have already been using VMWare player for some time and found it to be very good. ESXi 5 has some hardware requirements, and if you are an Intel fanboy like me then they are as follows:

  1. Processor is 64bit.
  2. Processor supports: VT-x
  3. Processor supports: VT-d: for direct mapping of a piece of hardware for an individual virtual machine.
  4. Computer BIOS Supports virtualization of the above.

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Windows Server 2008 R1 GPO Preferences Drive Mapping Terminal Session

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Sep 222011
 

After spending a good few hours screwing around with Windows Server 2008 R1 and Terminal sessions with GPO Mapped Drives I finally found that drives would not be mapped without the reconnect option enabled.

So there you go, if you are having similar problems, ignore the help stating the reconnect is the same as persistent connections, it is required for them to be mapped at all.

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