You can install vCenter Server with an embedded or external Platform Services Controller on a Microsoft Windows virtual machine or physical server to manage your vSphere environment.

Before you install vCenter Server, download the installer ISO file and mount it to the Windows host machine on which you want to perform the installation, and then start the installation wizard.

Windows installations of vCenter Server can use either the embedded PostreSQL database or an external database. Before installing vCenter Server that uses an external database, you must prepare your database. See Preparing vCenter Server Databases for Install.

For information about the vCenter Server requirements, see vCenter Server for Windows Requirements.

For information about the inputs that are required during the installation of vCenter Server, see Required Information for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller on Windows.

Important: For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must install the replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful deployment of all Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent installations of multiple vCenter Server instances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

After you install vCenter Server, only the user administrator@your_domain_name has the privileges to log in to the vCenter Server system.

The administrator@your_domain_name user can perform the following tasks:

  • Add an identity source in which additional users and groups are defined in vCenter Single Sign-On.
  • Assign roles to users and groups to give them privileges.

For information about adding identity sources and giving permissions to the users and groups, see Platform Services Controller Administration.

Starting with vSphere 6.5, vCenter Server supports mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environment. If you want to set up the vCenter Server instance to use an IPv6 address version, use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or host name of the host machine. To set up an IPv4 address, the best practice is to use the FQDN or host name of the host machine, because the IP address can change if assigned by DHCP.