That old PC in the corner can become a proper virtualisation server. Proxmox VE is free, installs in minutes, and lets one machine run many virtual machines and containers — each isolated, each with its own job. Here is the full path: checking the PC, installing, logging in, creating the first VM and setting up backups, with the honest limits stated plainly.
A spare PC usually does one job badly — or sits switched off. A hypervisor changes the maths: one machine, many computers inside it. A file server here, a test Windows there, a small Linux box for experiments — all independent, all snapshot-able, all free to delete and rebuild when you break them. Proxmox VE is the hypervisor in the video: free and open source, built on Debian Linux, combining full virtual machines (KVM) and light containers (LXC) behind one clean web interface. This guide follows the complete build in order.
Proxmox VE only runs on a 64-bit CPU with hardware virtualisation — Intel VT-x or AMD-V — and it must be switched on in the BIOS/UEFI. A PC that cannot do this cannot run Proxmox at all; there is no workaround and no lighter mode. Before anything else, check three things honestly: the CPU supports VT-x/AMD-V, you have at least 8 GB of RAM (16 GB is where it gets practical, 32 GB is comfortable), and you have a spare SSD or hard disk you are willing to erase completely.
Download the Proxmox VE ISO only from the official site, proxmox.com, and write it to a USB pen drive with a tool like Rufus or Ventoy. Also keep a second machine — your laptop or phone browser — free, because once the install starts, this PC has no desktop of its own: everything after that happens through a web page.
Boot the PC from the USB drive and start the Proxmox installer. The warning deserves reading twice: the installer erases the entire target disk. There is no dual boot and no 'keep my files' option. Whatever is on that disk — old Windows, photos, everything — is gone. This is exactly why the video uses a spare PC, not the family machine.
192.168.1.50 with your router as the gateway. A server whose address keeps changing is a daily irritation.When the PC restarts it shows only a text console ending with a line like https://192.168.1.50:8006. That is not an error — that text screen is all a Proxmox host ever shows. The real interface is the web page.
From your other machine, open a browser and go to the address the console showed — https:// plus the IP, ending in :8006. The browser will warn that the connection is not private. This warning is normal and expected. Proxmox installs its own self-signed certificate; your browser simply cannot verify a certificate the PC made for itself. Click Advanced and proceed — you are connecting to your own machine on your own network. Log in as user root with the password you set during installation.
One more honest note: if a popup appears saying no valid subscription was found, that is also normal. It is a reminder, not a trial countdown and not a locked feature. The system works fully without a subscription — a later article in this series shows how to point a free install at the no-subscription update repository properly.
A hypervisor earns its keep when the first VM runs. In the left panel, select your node, then local storage, then ISO Images, and upload the ISO of the system you want — Ubuntu Server, Debian or Windows, downloaded from its official source. Then:
That console window is your screen, keyboard and mouse for the VM. Install, reboot inside the VM, and it is a real, independent computer now — living inside the spare PC.
The moment a VM does something useful, it deserves a backup. Proxmox has backup built in: select the VM, open the Backup tab, and run Backup now once to prove it works. Then schedule it under Datacenter → Backup so it happens without you. One honest warning that cannot be repeated enough: a backup stored on the same disk as the VM is not a real backup. If that disk dies, both die together. Send backups to a USB drive, a NAS, or another machine — anywhere physically different.
Here is what the 'powerhouse' framing leaves out. Everything on this PC shares one power supply, one disk controller, one network cable. If the PC dies on a Sunday night, every VM on it is down together until you repair it. RAM is the hard ceiling — you cannot give VMs more memory than the machine physically has, and Proxmox will not magic up more. And an old PC sipping power 24×7 is still a real electricity line item. None of this makes Proxmox a bad idea — for a home lab, a test bench, or non-critical office services it is superb and genuinely free. It just means: keep backups outside the box, and do not put the one service your whole office depends on onto a single ageing desktop without a plan for the day it stops.
See the full Proxmox installation and first VM creation, live and step by step.
▶️ Watch Full VideoYes. Proxmox VE is open source and free to download and use, including in an office. The company sells optional subscriptions that provide support and access to the enterprise update repository. Without a subscription you use the free no-subscription repository instead — the software itself is the same and no feature is locked.
Because Proxmox creates its own self-signed certificate during installation, and your browser cannot verify a certificate the PC issued to itself. On your own home or office network, proceeding past this warning to reach your own server is normal and expected. You can later install a proper certificate if the warning bothers you.
Proxmox itself is light — around 2 GB keeps the host happy. The rest is your VMs' budget. 8 GB total runs one small Linux VM; 16 GB is a practical home-lab size; 32 GB lets several VMs breathe. RAM, not CPU, is almost always the first ceiling you hit.