Windows Server 2008 in a VMware Virtual Environment

Last month I installed and configured a Windows Server 2008 domain controller in an existing Windows 2003 domain. The majority of the servers on this network run in a vmware virtual environment. The virtual environment contains 3 host servers running ESX 3.5 and local storage.  Windows Server 2008 was installed fresh on a dual processor 2gb ram configured virtual machine and joined to the domain. Only 20gb of disk space was allocated since Active Directory and DNS would be, for the time being, the only planned functions for this server. Windows Server 2008 and VMware tools installed without any issues. After testing the backup and antivirus solution with the new server the following was performed:

1. Ran adprep /forestprep and adrep /domainprep /gpprep from the Windows Server 2008 CD (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc733027.aspx)

2. Ran dcpromo, rebooted, logged back in

3. The global catalog function was enabled and all the fsmo roles were then transfered to the new server. Initially, I couldnt figure out how to access the active directory schema snap-in on Server 2008 so I transfered it using the schema admin snap-in on one of the existing 2003 domain controllers. Afterwards I found that the following dll needed to be registered:

regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll

This enabled the schema admin snap-in option in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) on Server 2008. More info here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732110.aspx

4. One of the two existing Windows Server 2003 domain controllers was then reconfigured as a member server

After a month in service, Windows Server 2008 in a vmware virtual environment seems to run just fine.