I decided to virtualize Windows Server 2016 in hopes to promote a domain controller and for shits and giggles. It was a partial success! I followed Alex's instructions (thank you again, Alex) and the installation performed flawlessly. I was able to boot into the Server Manager.

Unfortunately, the virtual machine was so incredibly slow so as to be completely unusable. I'll try to salvage as much log information as possible.

I count this as a success :)

Joel