Moving information from virtual server to physical box

[JMBates]

Hello all,

 

I was wondering if it is at all feasible to move all information created on a virtual server onto a physical box. The reason I ask this is because a feeder school is in dire need of a new server with new folder structures, GPOs and general administration. I have been alotted four hours a week to improve their network which isn't enough, especially when starting from scratch. I was wondering if I were to work on a new server build on a virtual machine at home, could I literally move all the folders like the SYSVOL folder onto a physical machine and it would keep all the users, security groups, group policy objects etc etc and work fine?

 

If not, could someone suggest an alternative way of doing this.

 

Thanks!

[CyberNerd]

why not just put a hypervisor on the physical machine

[JMBates]

We haven't got a physical machine as of yet. And when we do get one, I can imagine the specifications won't be amazing as money is an issue for the feeder school. Everything is just theoretical at the moment and any ideas I put forward may be shot down, but thanks anyway. We may get lucky and be able to do your suggestion on a decent spec machine.

[hit]

There's nothing to stop you building the machine as a VM then once you get the physical server, dcpromo it as a second domain controller, move any shares over then demote the VM instance after checking that everything is synced.

 

The only stuff that may give you a bit of a headache is software with a DB (AV consoles etc) which I would put off until you have the physical server.

[SYNACK]

All sounds overly complicated to me, build it as a VHD then when you get your new server simply move the VHD onto the new hardware's hardrive and set the windows boot manager to boot it. Have done it before as the Windows 7/2008R2 boot manager will allow you to boot from a VHD.

 

Creating a Boot from VHD in Win7 - BenkoBLOG - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

I just put Win 7 on the hardware as a base then put the VHD on and set it as the default boot option, worked well and really quick, didn't need to sysprep it or anything. May want to test it though as the one I was doing was not a DC.

[JMBates]

All sounds overly complicated to me, build it as a VHD then when you get your new server simply move the VHD onto the new hardware's hardrive and set the windows boot manager to boot it. Have done it before as the Windows 7/2008R2 boot manager will allow you to boot from a VHD.

 

Creating a Boot from VHD in Win7 - BenkoBLOG - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

I just put Win 7 on the hardware as a base then put the VHD on and set it as the default boot option, worked well and really quick, didn't need to sysprep it or anything. May want to test it though as the one I was doing was not a DC.

 

I'm liking this idea SYNACK. Do you know if this method works with WinXP or Win2k8 as a host?

[Arthur]

Only the Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 support booting from VHD.

[JMBates]

Only the Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 support booting from VHD.

 

Thank you for this.

[plexer]

Add a Native-Boot Virtual Hard Disk to the Boot Menu

 

Seems like a good idea or as mentioned install hyper-v on the host and do it that way, I knwo you said you doubt they'd buy something that could do that but it doesn't have to be massively over specced to do the job.

 

Ben