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What's the specific purpose? In most cases I'd not cloning at all.,Simply install a new DC and let the data replicate instead. There are only a few cases where cloning might be a good idea, but how you'd do it very much depends on the ultimate goal.
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What's the specific purpose? In most cases I'd not cloning at all.,Simply install a new DC and let the data replicate instead. There are only a few cases where cloning might be a good idea, but how you'd do it very much depends on the ultimate goal.

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I need step by step on how to clone a windows 2012 r2 DC and move it to an isolated lab in VMware
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I need step by step on how to clone a windows 2012 r2 DC and move it to an isolated lab in VMware

Clone windows 2012 DC an place in an isolated lab

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.

Virtualization

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8 and the successor to Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2012 is the first version of Windows Server to have no support for Itanium-based computers since Windows NT 4.0. Windows Server 2012, now in its second release (Windows Server 2012 Release 2) includes Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter, and does not support IA-32 or IA-64 processors.