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The following steps are helpful to clone a Win 2012 R2 server from an arbitrary image to a new machine (incl. SQL server installation). Power down source image Power up copied, new image Open via ESx console / vSphere Client and first rename workstation to new name and unjoin the domain (e.g. workgroup TEMP), Restart Rejoin domain, Restart (unjoin/rejoin prevents many silly issues with the AD) Access from now on via mstsc Start checking for Windows updates Open SQL Management Studio and add the domain sysadmin user, if not present Now it's safe to delete the <old-workstation-name>\<admin-username> Have all Windows updates installed Create "clean" Snapshot

Containers are a powerful means of cleanly isolating applications without the tremendous overhead of having each application running in its own virtual machine. So far, the Docker project brought containers to the Linux operating system(s). Sources: Containers: Docker, Windows and Trends by Mark Russinovich Windows Containers Debut in New Windows Server 2016 Preview Keywords: Windows Server, Docker, Containers, Virtualization

For those playing with networking at home and who have an Domain Controller with Active Directory set up (although it would not be needed) and likely have that main server running as a virtual machine it is interesting to know if it has any side effects to revert back to old snapshots. Asking yourself this question, you will pretty quickly find many articles and posts that this would be a bad idea. The why is likely not found so quickly. The linked blog post nicely explains why. In short: You do not want your update sequence number (USN) getting out of sync. Furthermore starting with Windows Server 2012 cloning an AD server IS supported. Sources: Virtual Domain Controller Cloning in Windows Server 2012 Never Snapshot a Domain Controller! Here’s Why… Snapshots and Domain Controllers - Are they ALWAYS bad??? Keywords: Windows Server, Active Directory, Domain Controller, Virtualization, Snapshot