The practice environment.

Observed inside Windows

Lab configuration

• KVM virtualization; 4 virtual CPUs, 8 GiB RAM, and a separate 100 GiB virtual disk on a USB SSD.
• UEFI firmware with Secure Boot keys and an emulated TPM 2.0.
• A dedicated NAT network for setup, updates, and later cloud practice; a separate non-forwarding network for isolated local exercises.
• No public remote-desktop exposure or shared host folder. Automatic sign-in is disabled.
• The original VM and disk are preserved; the original disk’s size, inode, and modification time were checked after setup.
• Installation media was ejected after setup. A hypervisor-managed clean-install snapshot was created.

Media verification

The English x64 Windows 11 Enterprise evaluation ISO was downloaded from Microsoft. Its SHA-256 matched Microsoft’s published evaluation hash.

bc3f24086ebadc94489066b5ad78089e2cf5c3491e90e790bb81a2b199c10e38

This is a time-limited Enterprise evaluation. Its activation and remaining evaluation period should be checked in Windows before continuing. It does not supply Microsoft 365 or Intune tenant licenses.

Next checks before fault injection

1. Complete Windows Update and any required restarts, then refresh the recovery baseline.
2. Use the standard test user to reproduce symptoms and the maintenance account only for authorized changes.
3. Use the isolated network for local fault injection. Switch to outbound NAT only when the exercise needs updates or a cloud service.
4. Perform HD-001: account access, capture real observations, and write the ticket before changing its public status.

Support incidents performed: 0 of 5. Setup verification is separate from a completed support case. Microsoft 365 and Intune tenant work remains planned.