Windows on Notities

Windows Server 2022 Home Lab — AD DS, DNS, CA and Secured RDP

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article describes the full setup of a two-server Windows Server 2022 home lab in Proxmox VE. Together the two virtual machines provide Active Directory Domain Services, DNS, Group Policy and a Certificate Authority (ADCS). RDP connections are secured with PKI certificates so that the Mac Mini M1 management workstation connects without certificate warnings.

This is part 3 of the series on building a Windows DevOps lab in Proxmox. In part 1 I described how to create a VM, and in part 2 how to prepare the template.

Proxmox Lab — Windows Server 2022 Template Preparation

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0100

This guide covers the complete process of preparing a freshly installed Windows Server 2022 VM as a reusable Proxmox template. All future VMs (CA server, member servers, etc.) are cloned from this template, saving significant time and ensuring a consistent baseline across the entire lab.

📄 Download the full guide with screenshots: WS2022-in-Proxmox-Template-Preparation-Guide.docx

Overview

The full process consists of these steps:

Install VirtIO guest drivers
Run Windows Update — fully patch the OS
Apply performance tweaks
Basic housekeeping — timezone, RDP, IE Enhanced Security
Sysprep — generalize and shut down
Convert to template in Proxmox

Warning: Never boot the VM after Sysprep. If you do, the generalization is consumed and the template must be rebuilt from scratch.

Proxmox Lab — Creating a Windows Server 2022 VM

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

This guide documents the complete process of creating a Windows Server 2022 virtual machine in Proxmox VE 9.1.6. It is based on actual lab setup experience and includes all corrections and lessons learned during the build of a home lab.

📄 Download the full guide with screenshots: WS2022-in-Proxmox-VM-Creation-Guide.docx

Environment

Component	Details
Proxmox Host	macpro2013.local — Mac Pro 2013 Trashcan
Proxmox Version	9.1.6
RAM	128 GB
Storage	3.6 TB NVMe (local-lvm pool)
Network Bridge	vmbr0 — internal lab network (192.168.178.x)
Proxmox WebUI	https://192.168.178.205:8006

Note: The Proxmox WebUI shows an SSL certificate warning because Proxmox uses a self-signed certificate by default. This is the motivation for setting up an internal Certificate Authority (CA) later — once the CA is in place, a proper trusted certificate can be issued for Proxmox.

Windows Server 2022 — Active Directory and DNS Installation

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

In this article I describe step by step how I installed Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and DNS on a Windows Server 2022 Datacenter VM in a VMware Fusion lab environment. The result is a fully functional domain controller for the domain lab.local, as the foundation for a Windows DevOps lab.

Environment

Component	Value
Virtualisation	VMware Fusion (macOS)
Guest operating system	Windows Server 2022 Datacenter (Desktop Experience)
Hostname	DC01
Domain name	lab.local
NetBIOS name	LAB
Lab network adapter	Ethernet1 — 172.16.37.10 (static IP)
Internet adapter	Ethernet0 — DHCP via VMware NAT

Step 1 — Configure Networking

Before installing Active Directory, the domain controller needs a static IP address. AD DS and DNS depend on a stable address.

Network routing to LAN systems with OpenVPN Server

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 15:40:22 +0100

To be able to access systems on the LAN network through the VPN tunnel of the OpenVPN server, the LAN system must know that traffic destined for the VPN subnet must be sent via the OpenVPN server. Without this additional route, return traffic will not reach the VPN clients.

In this example, we use the subnet 10.0.8.0/24 as the IP range you have configured for the OpenVPN tunnel. This is the network in which all VPN clients receive an IP address. To ensure that a device on the LAN can correctly send traffic back to these VPN clients, you must add a static route on that LAN device.

Compress photos without quality loss for any platform

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 01:58:22 +0100

P.S. Special thanks to Maria Isabel Rondini
She inspired this article as part of the research for her thesis, where she could use some extra attention for the tool ImageCompressor.

Do you want to make your photos smaller in size without losing quality?
Good news: you don’t need to install any software for that!
With the online tool ImageCompressor, you can simply upload your photos and compress them directly in your browser.
That means it doesn’t matter whether you’re working on Windows, Linux, or macOS—as long as you have an internet connection, you can easily compress your photos.

Create a website for free with GitHub Pages

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 19:18:22 +0100

Create a website for free with GitHub

P.S. Would you like somebody to help you? Feel free to send me a message on one of my Social Media Links available on this website.

Automatically log in to Windows

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 11:58:22 +0100

Entering a password or PIN is not equally convenient for everyone.
Do you find it annoying to enter a password or PIN every time you log in to Windows?
You can also automatically log in to Windows. When the computer has finished starting up, you will immediately see the desktop. On the desktop you can make all your useful programs accessible and you have that immediately in front of you when you have turned on the computer. You can then immediately start using the computer, without having to enter a password or PIN first.

Save an entire webpage

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 09:50:22 +0100

In the web browser Microsoft Edge:
> click the 3 dots in the top right corner: ...
> choose the option: Web capture (Ctrl+Shift+S)
> choose the option: Capture full page
> click the button: Save
> an image of type .jpeg will now be saved in your personal directory: Downloads

Zooming in and out on a website

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 20:56:00 +0100

Hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard
and scroll with the wheel on the mouse.

Windows Update Shortcut

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 09:07:17 +0000

Windows Update shortcut that everyone should have on their desktop

* Have your desktop in front of you
* Right-click
* Choose: New
* Choose: Shortcut
* Enter the following as the location:

 (On Windows 8)

 %windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{36eef7db-88ad-4e81-ad49-0e313f0c35f8}

 (On Windows 10)

 ms-settings:windowsupdate


* Click: Next
* Enter the name: Windows Update
* Click: Finish