Build your Windows Server lab

You’ll do almost everything from PowerShell, so you can repeat it later or fix a single step without clicking through wizards. Open Windows PowerShell as a normal user (not as administrator) unless a step says otherwise.

1Check if Windows is already running a hypervisor

Run this:

(Get-CimInstance Win32_ComputerSystem).HypervisorPresent

You should see one of these:

False

False is the best case: VirtualBox gets the processor’s virtualization feature to itself. True means Hyper-V, WSL 2, Windows Sandbox or Memory Integrity is running a hypervisor already. VirtualBox still works on top of it, but VMs run slower and you’ll see a small green turtle icon in the VM’s status bar.

If it says True and you don’t need those features, you can turn it off: open Windows Security, go to Device security, then Core isolation details, and switch off Memory integrity. Then, in an administrator PowerShell, run bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off and restart. On a company laptop, ask your IT team first; these are security settings.

✅ Checkpoint: You know whether your laptop shows True or False, and you have decided whether to keep the hypervisor on.

2Install VirtualBox

Run this:

winget install --id Oracle.VirtualBox -e

Click Yes when Windows asks for permission. If winget isn’t available, download the Windows installer from virtualbox.org and run it with the default options. If the installer asks for the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable, install that from Microsoft’s site first and run the VirtualBox installer again.

When it finishes, run this:

& "$env:ProgramFiles\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" --version

You should see something like this:

7.2.20r172096

VBoxManage is VirtualBox’s command-line tool. Anything you can click in the VirtualBox window, you can also do with it. The & at the start tells PowerShell to run the program at that path.

✅ Checkpoint: VBoxManage prints a version number starting with 7.

3Make VBoxManage easy to call

Typing the full path every time gets old quickly. Add the VirtualBox folder to your user PATH, the list of folders Windows searches for programs:

Paste this whole block:

$vbox = "$env:ProgramFiles\Oracle\VirtualBox"
$userPath = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', 'User')
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path', "$userPath;$vbox", 'User')

This prints nothing. Now close this PowerShell window and open a new one; a window only reads PATH when it starts.

In the new window, run this:

VBoxManage --version

You should see something like this:

7.2.20r172096

✅ Checkpoint: VBoxManage works by name in a new PowerShell window.

4Make the lab folders and download the ISOs

Run this:

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path C:\Lab\ISO, C:\Lab\VMs

You should see something like this:

    Directory: C:\Lab


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-----        19-10-2026     19:40                ISO
d-----        19-10-2026     19:40                VMs

Now download the two ISOs from Microsoft’s Evaluation Center. Each page asks you to fill in a short form first:

• Windows Server 2025: open Windows Server 2025 on the Evaluation Center, choose ISO download, 64-bit, English.
• Windows 11 Enterprise: open Windows 11 Enterprise on the Evaluation Center and choose the 64-bit ISO for the latest version (not the LTSC one).

Move both files into C:\Lab\ISO and rename them to server2025.iso and win11.iso. Then check them:

Run this:

Get-ChildItem C:\Lab\ISO | Select-Object Name, @{n='SizeGB';e={[math]::Round($_.Length/1GB,1)}}

You should see something like this:

Name           SizeGB
----           ------
server2025.iso    5.6
win11.iso         6.4

✅ Checkpoint: Both ISOs are in C:\Lab\ISO with exactly these names, and each is several GB. A file of a few MB means the download stopped early.

5Build the private lab network

Run this:

VBoxManage natnetwork add --netname LabNet --network "10.0.0.0/24" --enable --dhcp off
VBoxManage natnetwork list

You should see something like this:

NAT Networks:

Name:         LabNet
Enabled:      Yes
Network:      10.0.0.0/24
Gateway:      10.0.0.1
DHCP Server:  No
IPv6:         No
IPv6 Prefix:  fd17:625c:f037:a00::/64
IPv6 Default: No

1 network found

The first command prints nothing when it works. The list confirms the range, the gateway at 10.0.0.1 and, most important, DHCP Server: No.

✅ Checkpoint: LabNet exists with network 10.0.0.0/24 and DHCP Server: No.

6Create the four virtual machines

This block creates each VM with VirtualBox’s recommended settings for its operating system (--default), then sets the memory, connects it to LabNet, creates its disk and puts the right ISO in its virtual DVD drive.

Paste this whole block:

$vms = @(
    @{ Name = 'DC01';  Type = 'Windows2025_64'; RAM = 2048; Disk = 61440; ISO = 'C:\Lab\ISO\server2025.iso' },
    @{ Name = 'DC02';  Type = 'Windows2025_64'; RAM = 2048; Disk = 61440; ISO = 'C:\Lab\ISO\server2025.iso' },
    @{ Name = 'SRV01'; Type = 'Windows2025_64'; RAM = 2048; Disk = 61440; ISO = 'C:\Lab\ISO\server2025.iso' },
    @{ Name = 'CL01';  Type = 'Windows11_64';   RAM = 4096; Disk = 81920; ISO = 'C:\Lab\ISO\win11.iso' }
)
foreach ($v in $vms) {
    $vdi = "C:\Lab\VMs\$($v.Name)\$($v.Name).vdi"
    VBoxManage createvm --name $v.Name --ostype $v.Type --basefolder C:\Lab\VMs --register --default
    VBoxManage modifyvm $v.Name --memory $v.RAM --cpus 2 --nic1 natnetwork --nat-network1 LabNet
    VBoxManage createmedium disk --filename $vdi --size $v.Disk
    VBoxManage storageattach $v.Name --storagectl SATA --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium $vdi
    VBoxManage storageattach $v.Name --storagectl SATA --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium $v.ISO
}

You should see this four times, once per VM (the UUIDs will be different):

Virtual machine 'DC01' is created and registered.
UUID: 3f0c6e2a-8b1d-4c57-9a2e-6d41b7f0c9a1
Settings file: 'C:\Lab\VMs\DC01\DC01.vbox'
0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%
Medium created. UUID: 9d2b7c41-0e6a-4f3b-b8c5-2a7e91d4f063

--size is in MB, so 61440 is 60 GB and 81920 is 80 GB. The disks start small and grow as the VMs use them. Windows11_64 turns on everything Windows 11 needs: UEFI, Secure Boot and a virtual TPM 2.0.

✅ Checkpoint: Four “is created and registered” messages and four “Medium created” lines, with no red errors.

7Check what you built

Run these:

VBoxManage list vms
VBoxManage showvminfo DC01 --machinereadable | Select-String '^(ostype|memory|cpus|nic1|nat-network1)='

You should see something like this:

"DC01" {3f0c6e2a-8b1d-4c57-9a2e-6d41b7f0c9a1}
"DC02" {b6a1d9e0-2f4c-47a8-9e13-58c0d2f7a4b2}
"SRV01" {e2c94f17-6a3b-4d0e-8f25-71b8a3c6d9e4}
"CL01" {0a7f3e5c-91d2-4b6a-a4e8-3c5d7f1b2e90}

ostype="Windows Server 2025 (64-bit)"
memory=2048
cpus=2
nat-network1="LabNet"
nic1="natnetwork"

--machinereadable prints every setting as name=value, and Select-String keeps only the lines you asked for. You’ll use the same pattern on servers: dump everything, then filter for what matters.

✅ Checkpoint: All four VMs are listed, and DC01 is on LabNet with 2048 MB and 2 CPUs.

8Start DC01 once to prove it works

Run this:

VBoxManage startvm DC01

You should see something like this:

Waiting for VM "DC01" to power on...
VM "DC01" has been successfully started.

A window opens, and after a few seconds Windows Setup asks for your language. That means the VM booted from the Server 2025 ISO, so virtualization, the disk and the DVD drive all work. Don’t install yet; that’s Lesson 5.

Turn it off:

VBoxManage controlvm DC01 poweroff

You should see this:

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

✅ Checkpoint: DC01 reached the Windows Setup language screen and then powered off.