How to Install Windows 2022 Server

Hello World, 

Windows 2022 Server has been available for some time now and we are starting seeing interest in the latest Microsoft server Operating System.  Based on Internet review and feedback received, Windows 2022 Server has been described as a really good release.  Windows 2022 Server can still be run on premises and also includes necessary tools and software for people willing to through the Hybrid Cloud journey.  

Since we are rebuilding our lab infrastructure (which some parts are based on NUC systems), we wanted to start testing and evaluation the Windows 2022 Server and see how good it is and see if any major changes are coming with this release.  So, this first post will be quite straight forward since we will simply go through a standard installation process 

Let’s do this ! 

Overview 

Assumptions

To perform this installation,

  • we have downloaded the Windows 2022 Evaluation Edition which ships with Desktop Experience option. 
  • We have installed Windows 2022 and Hyper-v role on a physical machine (this is not explained on this post)  
  • We have created a virtual machine and installation will be performed on top of it 
  • We will install the Datacenter edition with Desktop experience in this guide 

Windows Editions

Windows 2022 server ship in 3 Editions 

  • Windows 2022 Essentials
  • Windows 2022 Standard 
  • Windows 2022 Datacenter 

The Free Hyper-V Windows Server edition is not available for Windows 2022 Server.  The Hyper-V Server Edition is basically a Windows Core Server including Hyper-V Roles and some limited infrastructure roles.  Installing the Hyper-V Software on a bare metal machine comes indeed at no costs.  However, if you were planning to deploy Windows VM, licensing costs would have applied (Linux VM would be free to use).  Free Hyper-V Server was a good option for people willing to learn about MS Virtualization solution….  

Choosing between the different editions depends on your project and based on the budget of your project. Windows Datacenter offers more features than the standard edition such as  storage Replica, Storage Direct spaces, shielded virtual machines, software defined network…but Datacenter is clearly more expensive 

Windows Servicing Channel Models

Microsoft has made the model service quite complex and this model seems to change with every new release… a real mess !  So, with previous releases (i.e. Windows 2016 and 2019) we have two release channels which are  

  • Long Term Service Channel (LTSC)  
  • Semi-Annual Channel (SAC)

In a nutshell, the LTSC offers longer support and focus on stability and usability. On the other hand, the SAC would be released more frequently (twice a year) and would ship with all new features. For Windows 2022, there is only one release channel which is the LTSC

Browser Edge ship by default on Windows 2022

A good addition in this release is the fact that the Edge Browser is available by default.  Internet Explorer seems to be still installed and available on the Windows 2022 server but finally we can have access to Edge in order to access and interact with modern web interface.   This feature only make it worthy to move to Windows 2022 Server Edition !!!

Step by Step installation 

Step by Step Guide 

 Step 1 – Your virtual machine is powered off 

Step 2 – Open your virtual machine settings and mount the iso file, change the boot order if needed. 

Step 3 – Boot your virtual machine 

Step 4 – You might see on the screen to press any key in order to boot from ISO/DVD files 

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Step 5 – the windows installer will show up and will prompt you to Select your regional settings (Language and Keyboard layout)

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Step 6 – The Wizard start and you can see the Install now button.  click on it to proceed with the installation.  

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The setup wizard initialize and will prepare the next steps 

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Step 7 – in the selection dialog box, you can choose which Windows 2022 edition you want to use and with or without desktop interface.  We have selected Datacenter + Desktop Experience option 

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Step 8 – In the license agreement page, accept it and proceed 

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Step 9 – In the installation page, select the option custom.  

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Step 10 –  In the Disk page, accept default and proceed. The wizard will create all the necessary partition needed 

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Step 11 – In the Installing Windows step, you can relax and wait for the machine to reboot 

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Step 12 –  The system will reboot perform some post actions 

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Step 13 – You will be presented with the Customize page where you basically need to provide password for the local admin account to be used 

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Step 14 –  When done, you will be presented with the login page with the familiar background image used in Windows 2016 and Windows 10 

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Step 15 –  You can login and start customize your installation by providing computer name, join the machine to a domain, set network settings, install roles and anything you would need to do have a functional server that meets your requirements. As shown in the screenshot below, we can see that we have indeed installed Windows 2022 server (Build Number 20348.587)

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Final notes  

As you can see, the process has not changed much.  Installation process is quite straight forward and seems even simplify as almost no questions or customization settings are shown during the installation.  Just after installing Windows, you still need to configure it by providing network information, computer name, join the domain if needed, install additional roles….If you look at the Desktop interface, you will see that it is the same as the one provided in Windows 2019 Server or Windows 10.  

If you are wondering if Windows 2022 Server will ship with the new Desktop interface already available in Windows 11, we can already say that this would be the case since we have been running the Insider Preview and the new Desktop Interface is already available and we should see it coming in the coming supported releases  

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Performance wise, look n feel, responsiveness and dark mode make it really pleasant to use Windows Server 2022

 

Till next time 

See ya 

 

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