ossimUpdate

1. First of all, you have to have an installation of the Server 2012 R2 available, without Hyper-V Feature enabled, and joined to a domain (you'll need a FQDN resolving later); updating the system is also advisable

2. you have to add .NET 3.5 to your Server

3. configure your LAN settings and enable Network Discovery

4. enable the Desktop Experience feature

5. if you already have VMware Workstation installed, disable the VM Sharing feature (it can be found within "Edit" -> "Preferences" -> "Shared VMs") or disable it and then change the port to non-default (for example: 444) value (if you still want to use it), otherwise there could be some problems with the ports later on

6.start the installation (usually there's no need for the custom install scenario so use a simple install)

 

After the installation is completed, before using the vSphere Web Client, make sure that your Domain Controller is accessible (otherwise you'll probably get client authentication errors and you won't be able to use the vCenter Server). Also, it you lose the connection to the DC or get these error(s) anyway, you can either restart the Windows Server (which is hosting the vCenter Server) or make sure that the DC is (re)connected, then restart all VMware services and restart the vSphere Web Client itself (please note that it usually takes a few minutes for it to start).