Hello everyone,

I’m reaching out to the communities of r/homelab, r/esxi, and r/vmware, hoping to find the right place for my query. I run a small 3-person business here middle in the Alps in Austria and have been struggling to find an IT technician willing to work with a company of our size. I’ve either received no responses or outright rejections due to our small scale. While I am somewhat tech-savvy, my experience with Windows Server and domain setups is limited.

I aim to install Windows Server 2022 on ESXi 7.0u3 (Free Version). This server will host the domain, our industry-specific software with an MS SQL Server. Currently, the industry software runs on a virtual Windows 10 machine on ESXi with a proprietary DB.

Our hardware includes a Dell PowerEdge R730 server, featuring 2x Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2643 v3 @ 3.40GHz, 63.91 GB RAM, PERC H730 Mini, drives (2x ST600MP0025 600GB 15K SAS, 3x AL14SEB120N 1.2TB 10K SAS), and network interfaces (2x 1Gbit, 2x 10Gbit - not connected). We’re using an 1820 HPE OfficeConnect switch and a PFSense router. The 15K HDDs are configured in RAID-1, and the 10K HDDs in RAID-5. ESXi is installed on a redundant dual-SD module, and currently, I’ve set up 4 VMs on it: 3x Ubuntu (for a ticket system, a DMS, and Meshcentral) and 1x Windows 10 (which I plan to replace with the Windows Server 2022).

I need guidance on the following points:

1. Recommended ESXi settings for this setup.
2. Necessary configurations for the Windows Server 2022 VM template.
3. Key considerations during the installation of Windows Server 2022.

I’m more than willing to share my current settings if it helps in providing advice.

Thank you all in advance for your assistance!