Hi everyone! Anyone here run headless and GUI (using Browser Library) Robot framework tests on Windows Server 2022? I want to be sure that I can work on the new machine that will be assigned to me. The machine will be coming from overseas, because the machine was intentionally setup with no admin access, I will be working on a VM (where I have admin access) inside the machine that has Windows server 2022 and I will be the one who needs to do all the setup for automation testing. I tried to search and found some info that winserver2022 runs headless by default. If anyone had some current or previous experience with this kind of setup, I hope you can give me more information, stuff I need to anticipate and if there are other key considerations I need to be aware of.
Thank you!
Hi Regina,
You mentioned the host machine will be Windows Server 2022, but you won’t have admin access, did they mention if they would be installing the desktop components with Windows Server 2022?
As you won’t have admin access, all you really need to be concerned with the controlling the virtual machines, start, stop and maybe creating new ones? If there’s no desktop then hopefully they’ll provide you some instructions for this, if there is a desktop it should be straight forward, and similar to controlling virtual machines on any windows desktop.
I gather you’ll be running robot framework inside the virtual machine, which OS will you be running on these virtual machines (guests)?
As you’ll have admin access to the guests, installing robot framework and related items should be fairly straight forward, as it’s when you don’t have admin access you’re likely to encounter issues.
- If your guest OS is windows, you’ll want to install python first
- If your guest OS is a Linux variant, you’ll need a display and window manager so the bowser will launch (XVFB can be helpful here)
- As you’ll be using Browser Library, make sure NodeJS is installed before you install Browser Library, not essential but easier, it doesn’t matter if you install it before or after python.
Robot Framework doesn’t really care about the host machine’s OS, only the guest machine (where you have admin access) but Robot Framework runs well on Windows, Linux and MacOS (though I suspect you won’t be using this), so which ever of these guests OS’s you use should be fine.
If you get stuck, help is here, just be sure to mention the guest OS and it’s component versions (python version, NodeJS version, etc) when asking questions, the fact you’re running on a VM on Windows server 2022, shouldn’t have any impact.
Hope this helps,
Dave.
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Thank you so much Dave for your comment.
They told me that the guest OS (VM) is windows server 2022, and that I can create more than 1 VM instance if I would like. I think with this statement they meant that desktop components are available for me in the host OS.
How about running Gui tests? I searched that winServ2022 default is headless? what is the best virtual display that I should install, or is it readily available in the OS that I can just activate?
I have no worries of installing every pre requisite needed for robotframework like python..etc, since they told me that I have admin access in the VM 
Hi Regina,
Headless doesn’t mean there’s no GUI, it simply means there’s no monitor and keyboard, usually on unix machines (including Linux) this will mean there’s no graphical display as well as because there’s no point installing a graphical display if there’s no monitor.
FYI - with Windows Server (well any version of windows) there is is always a graphical display and window manager, because that is a core part of windows, so if the desktop is not installed then the desktop is just replaced with a command line window that has a terminal menu in it. So with any windows version you’ll be able to run GUI tests.
If you can, I’ll suggest installing the desktop components on your windows guests, it’ll just make your life easier, once you’ve had more practice with setting up the VM’s later down the track you might want to leave out the desktop components so you have more free RAM, but this will only matter if you’re running Browser Library with pabot and trying to maximise the number of parallel robots per VM, as not having the desktop components might give you some extra Browser Library robot, not worth it initially but later when you know you want to do this, you should already be familiar enough to know you’re ready for it.
Good luck with your learning journey, these will be great skills to have 
Dave.
ah got it! thanks dave! i’ll update here once I got my machine and did the setup!
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Hi @damies13 ! I got my new laptop Monday and was able to install and setup everything yesterday in the VMs I created in HyperV Host OS is Windows11 and the VM base image is Windows Server 2022 (and yes it was a desktop version). The installation was a breeze! Everything works fine, thank you so much for your help!
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Hi Regina,
Great news One of the best things about robot framework is the great community, lots of friendly people here to help, have fun with your new setup 
Dave.
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