Deploy Nano Server 2016

The Windows Nano Server is one of the hottest topics in the market. The nano Servers are smaller in size and faster. They are well suited for certain scenarios like IIS Server, DNS Server, File Server or the Hyper-V Server. The Nano Servers doesn’t have the logon locally feature and it doesn’t even have an GUI. How to deploy and manage the Nano Servers? So here we are to know how to download and deploy the Nano Server.

Step 1: Get the VHD File

Method 1 – Using VHD

Download the Nano Server’s VHD file from Microsoft Official Website.

Method 2 – Using Windows ISO to deploy Nano Server

Open the ISO of the Windows Server 2016 and copy the Nano Server folder into Desktop.

Set the Execution Policy of the PowerShell

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Navigate to the contents of the copied folder.

Import-Module .\NanoServerImageGenerator -Verbose

Now run the following command to generate the VHD file.

New-NanoServerImage -Edition Standard -DeploymentType Guest -MediaPath <path to root of media> -BasePath .\Base -TargetPath .\NanoServerVM\NanoServerVM.vhd -ComputerName <computer name>

where

• -MediaPath specifies a path of the mounted ISO.
• -BasePath (optional) specifies a folder that will be created to copy the Nano Server WIM and packages to.
• -TargetPath specifies a path, including the filename and extension, where the resulting VHD or VHDX will be created.
• Computer_name specifies the computer name that the Nano Server virtual machine you are creating will have.

Step 2: Import into Hyper-V

Having the VHD File in hand, next you need to create a VM.

Open Hyper-V Manager and create a new VM and mention the VHD file.

That’s it. Your Nano server is ready.

Power on the VM and connect to it.

As discussed nano servers consume less resources. It is seen that it is consuming only 512MB RAM, and only 610MB of space.