I have a TechNet subscription and am supposed to get "priority support" but I mistakenly asked my question in one of the forums that is not in the "priority support monitored" list. Included here by reference:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/bbbb34f2-e098-4f7d-b692-88e033869385/windows-server-2012r2-inplace-upgrade-from-2012-quotjust-quitsquot?forum=winserver2012r2previewsetup

Short description: On the 2012 DataCenter machine which serves as my Hyper-V host, I mount the install media and launch Setup. It starts, copies the temporary files ($windows.~bt) and then just quits.

Content of c:\windows\setupact.log:

2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info                  UI     Determining whether we should run ConX or legacy setup
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info                  UI     Downlevel OS is server. Continue to run legacy setup
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info                  UI     Determining if we are in WDS/Unattend mode
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info                  UI     No need to hide autorun
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info       [0x0a000a] UI     Autorun:Autorun core successfully  initialized!!!
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info       [0x0a000b] UI     Autorun:Autorun UI successfully  initialized!!!
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info                  UI     AppWindow has layout style 0
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info                  UI     NavWindow has layout style 0
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Warning    [0x0a0180] UI     Failed to change the UI language to en-US.
2013-10-11 10:29:04, Info       [0x0a011c] UI     WizardDialogPost::SetActive
2013-10-11 10:29:09, Info       [0x0a018e] UI     Passing command line parameter ("H:\Sources\setup.exe /HideWelcome /uilanguage:en-US /targetlanguage:en-US") to IBS.

Would appreciate any suggestions that don't involve doing a detailed documentation capture of how the server is configured followed by a clean install, that is what I'm trying to avoid if possible.

I am not trying to do anything special or scripted, just a standard OS upgrade.

Just an update. I downloaded the newest "en_windows_server_2012_r2_vl_x64_dvd_2979250" made available this morning on TechNet, which apparently has the post-RTM updates integrated.

Behavior is exactly the same.

Hi ,

Thank you for posting your issue in the forum.

I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best Regards,

Andy Qi

Did other servers encoutre this issue?

Since there is no error message and upgarading process just quits, it may be caused by incompalcity issues between hardwares or applications.

This is the only time I have encountered this particular issue. All my other 2012 to 2012R2 upgrades have been successful; however all but one of them were virtual machines. This is a physical machine based on an Intel Core i7-950 and there is to my knowledge no hardware or software that could cause an incompatibility.

If it makes any difference, the same server was previously upgraded from 2008R2 to 2012 with no such problems. I have seen one other mention so far of someone seeing the same thing happen to them.

I have the exact same issue. Intel core i5 machine. upgraded from Windows Server 2008r2 to Windows Server 2012. Using either ISO burned to DVD or ISO mounted or ISO mounted and files copied locally. After Install Now on splash screen, setup is copying files, Starting setup and back to Install Now splash screen. No logs found anywhere that point to issue. Event logs show nothing related.

Really vexing.

Nothing I've seen yet Brandon. I've wracked my brain and searched online but nothing. I wish MS would weigh in on this one. I suspect it may be related to the fact that the server in question was originally a 2008 r2 box then "in place upgraded" to Server 2012. I've used the same media on 2 virtual machines running 2008 r2 and had no problems. Still st

• Edited by BrandonMills Monday, February 03, 2014 4:49 PM

Hi Pepper, Malort, Robert and Brandon,

I am experiencing the same issue using either new release (april 2014) or the gold release 2012 R2 DVD from Volume license (SA) download. Both confirmed working on other installations. Setup just suddenly quits with the same non existent logs files in $windows.~bt and c:\windows\setupact.log has a warning statement "Failed to change the UI language to en-US" as per the first post.

The server is currently running 2008R2 in a vm and would otherwise appear to be performing perfectly. It is a DC(GC), DHCP, DNS & CA for my site.

Going to try System Update readiness Tool KB947821-v33.

Heads up MSFP Anne, any word on the cause and/or fix?

Regards,

Andre

• Edited by Andre Tomlinson Tuesday, July 15, 2014 10:44 AM

Hi Pepper, Malort, Robert and Brandon,

I am experiencing the same issue using either new release (april 2014) or the gold release 2012 R2 DVD from Volume license (SA) download. Both confirmed working on other installations. Setup just suddenly quits with the same non existent logs files in $windows.~bt and c:\windows\setupact.log has a warning statement "Failed to change the UI language to en-US"

The server is running as a vm and would otherwise appear to be running perfectly. It is a DC(GC), DHCP, DNS & CA for my site.

Going to try System Update readiness Tool KB947821-v33.

Heads up MSFP Anne, any word on the cause and/or fix?

Regards,

Andre

Same here,

trying to upgrade a server 2008 R2 server running on hyper-v to server 2012 R2 with update1.

The server was a server 2008 and was upgraded to server 2008 R2.

This is the only log i can found:

 2014-07-04 14:20:13, Info                  UI     Determining whether we should run ConX or legacy setup
2014-07-04 14:20:13, Info                  UI     Downlevel OS is server. Continue to run legacy setup
2014-07-04 14:20:13, Info                  UI     Determining if we are in WDS/Unattend mode
2014-07-04 14:20:14, Info                  UI     No need to hide autorun
2014-07-04 14:20:14, Info       [0x0a000a] UI     Autorun:Autorun core successfully  initialized!!!
2014-07-04 14:20:14, Info       [0x0a000b] UI     Autorun:Autorun UI successfully  initialized!!!
2014-07-04 14:20:14, Warning               UI     CLanguages::v_InitLanguage - Failed to load en-US resources with error 2. Will load fallback binaries
2014-07-04 14:20:15, Info                  UI     AppWindow has layout style 0
2014-07-04 14:20:15, Info                  UI     NavWindow has layout style 0
2014-07-04 14:20:15, Warning    [0x0a0180] UI     Failed to change the UI language to nl-NL.
2014-07-04 14:20:15, Warning               UI     CLanguages::v_InitLanguage - Failed to load en-US resources with error 2. Will load fallback binaries
2014-07-04 14:20:15, Info       [0x0a011c] UI     WizardDialogPost::SetActive
2014-07-04 14:20:16, Info       [0x0a018e] UI     Passing command line parameter ("D:\Sources\setup.exe /HideWelcome /uilanguage:nl-NL /targetlanguage:nl-NL") to IBS.
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 16 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 16 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 17 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 17 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 18 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 18 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 16 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 16 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 17 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 17 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 18 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 18 key on 0
2014-07-04 14:21:03, Warning    [0x0a0010] UI     WM_KEYUP for 9 key on 0

• Edited by Reijer Dekker Friday, July 04, 2014 1:46 PM

As an update

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/681149bd-a204-48d4-ae93-557c1b950bfc/failed-to-set-teh-selected-language-as-ui-language?forum=winserversetup

has a similar error message and talks of changing the setup language to something other than en-US to fix. I can't find a way to do this or get any additional more detailed error logs to what has been included in this thread already.

System Update readiness Tool KB947821-v33 did not find or fix anything

SFC /verifyonly did not find or fix anything.

Going to run process monitor from sysinternals and see if that turn up anything.

Andre

update: about 2 hours later....

Process monitor (saved the pml file - 144MB) gave me a command line launch statement:

C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\setup.exe /runlocal /BTFolderPath:C:\$WINDOWS.~BT /OSImagePath:"z:\Sources" /HideWelcome /uilanguage:en-US /targetlanguage:en-US

If I run the above command from Start-->Run I get the first Windows Setup screen "Get important updates for Windows Setup (Yay!). If I then say go online, updates download and setup tries to restart and "quits". If I repeat and select No thanks, I'm prompted with the operating system options, next, license terms, next, upgrade (selected) vs clean install, next and then Windows Setup fails with message,

"Windows Setup cannot locate a valid hard drive to store temporary installation files. To install Windows, create more free space on the hard drive or add a new hard drive."

I notice on: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa367988(v=vs.85).aspx

that I can specify a /tempdrive:{driveletter} command line option

so I mount a new 20GB disk (how nice is vmware Esxi), new volume, format, assign drive letter f:

and run

C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\setup.exe /runlocal /BTFolderPath:C:\$WINDOWS.~BT /OSImagePath:"z:\Sources" /HideWelcome /uilanguage:en-US /targetlanguage:en-US /tempdrive:f

and get a failure message

"The specified drive [F:] does not meet all requirements necessary to store temporary installation files."

Giving up for today. Time to sleep now. :-)

Hopefully the above can illuminate a light bulb or two in someone else's head.

Andre

Read the setup logs, now in C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\panther\

the freshly added f: drive wasn't recognised by bios.

Vm reboot.

Start--> Run

C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\setup.exe /runlocal /BTFolderPath:C:\$WINDOWS.~BT /OSImagePath:"z:\Sources" /HideWelcome /uilanguage:en-US /targetlanguage:en-US /tempdrive:f

and the upgrade works (do not go online for updates during setup)

:-)

Andre

• Marked as answer by PepperdotNet Tuesday, July 15, 2014 11:02 PM

Andre, you are the man!

I tweaked the command line you discovered with Process Monitor. In my case the BTFolderPath was on F: and I had a folder containing the DVD contents:

f:\$windows.~bt\sources\setup.exe /runlocal /BTFolderPath:F:\$windows.~bt /OSImagePath:"E:\IR3_SSS_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9\sources" /HideWelcome /uilanguage:en-US /targetlanguage:en-US /tempdrive:F

It worked!

When finished, the only issues were I had to reinstall drivers for my Intel Gigabit VT Quad-port adapter and rebuild the network teams.

Even Microsoft Support had given up, telling me that all their similar cases were solved by "clean install" - I updated them with this information.

Thanks again! I am forever indebted to you for this.

Andre, thanks for the work. I've just successfully upgraded 2012 to 2012R2. Heard Mark Rusinovich on Channel 9 say the first thing they do to troubleshoot an issue is use Process Monitor. I should have taken his advice. Again many thanks.

Malort

Worked for me with some slight modifications to the command line.

Thanks for the help!

http://ark.intel.com/products/37150/Intel-Core-i7-950-Processor-8M-Cache-3_06-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI

Memory (RAM) issue?

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/bbbb34f2-e098-4f7d-b692-88e033869385/windows-server-2012r2-inplace-upgrade-from-2012-just-quits?forum=winserver2012r2previewsetup

I notice in this discussion you have 32 GB of RAM; is this correct?

http://ark.intel.com/products/37150/Intel-Core-i7-950-Processor-8M-Cache-3_06-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI

Here there is mention of max amount of RAM supported for this processor.

Eric, thanks for the input.

Indeed, Intel's ARK does say the maximum RAM supported by that processor is 24GB.

I suspect that in Q2'09 when the specs were written, there were no 8GB modules available, the system is running just fine with this configuration and the original Windows setup problem was resolved using the previous information. Before I started replacing 4GB modules with 8GB, I found plenty of articles such as this one http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1716436 which were stating that the chipset and processor would in fact support up to 48GB.

The specific machine I was referencing in the original question has since been upgraded again to 6x8GB modules which is 48GB, and it is still working just fine.

I have the same problem however I don't have a setup.exe in the $windows.~bt

At some point I was able to pass the first stage, rebooted the server and ended up on a command prompt and nothing else.

Any ideas? I'm using a VM in ESX.