Unable to WDS install Win 8.1 VM on Hyper-V 2012 R2

Hi.

We've recently gone from Server 2008 R2 (Data Center) to Windows 2012 R2 (Data Center) and we're now trying to install Windows 8.1 clients on our Hyper-V solution.

When using the virtual machine creation wizard I create two test machines.
One machine is a gen1 and one machine is gen2 both are set to install via network (MDT 2013) and both a given a 40GB disk and 4GB of ram. Both installations fail.

"Windows setup could not configure windows to run on this computer's hardware".

According to everything I've found on the web this could happen if you try and install Windows 7 - something to do with 4K disks I think. This shouldn't happen on Windows 8.x.

I've seen a few posts where they explain the IDE controller being unable to handle 4K disks so that might explain something but in my case I also have a gen2 machine where disk is attached to a SCSI controller.

As I understand it a server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V should be able to have a Windows 8.1 installed on a VHDX file on a SCSI controller.

Can anyone help out here?

Thank you!



  • Edited by tbresson-rh Monday, February 23, 2015 12:54 PM
  • Edited by BrianEhMVP 17 hours 56 minutes ago title clarity
  • Moved by BrianEhMVP 17 hours 54 minutes ago
February 23rd, 2015 12:49pm

How are you creating your VM?

I have never seen this when installing using an ISO.  But, if you are using some pre-created VHD or DISM image I have seen this happen.

FYI - this has nothing to do with VHDX or VHD - that makes no difference to the OS inside of the VM.

It has nothing to do with the block sizes.

It could have everything to do with the MDT image.

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February 23rd, 2015 4:16pm

I use the Failover Cluster Manager.

I right click and choose New Virtual Machine, choose the Hyper-V host, name it, assign it RAM and network and choose create a virtual harddisk on our SAN. The last option I choose "Install an operating system from a network-based installation server" which probably means it adds the required network adapter and assigns a boot order where the NIC is first.

Installing with an ISO seems to work just fine.

The MDT image isen't very complicated. It's more or less up to date, uses some drivers and installs office 2013 and joins the domain. The Task Sequence is a Standard Client Task Sequence and works fine on physical machines and worked fine on our previous Server 2008 R2 Cluster (as I recall anyway) - where of course I didn't have the same options (like vhdx, generation 2, booting from iscsi controllers etc.).

February 24th, 2015 3:21pm

Hi Sir,

Boot from NIC you just need to add a legacy NIC for GEN1 VM ,  there is nothing need to do with GEN2 VM just change NetWork Card to first device .

Also connect the NIC to external virtual switch .

http://www.danielclasson.com/guide-how-to-get-pxe-boot-to-work-in-hyper-v/

As far as I know , windows environment WDS is needed to perform PXE boot :

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2008/11/25/installing-a-vm-operating-system-using-a-legacy-network-adapter-and-pxe-boot.aspx

Best Regards,

Elton Ji 

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February 25th, 2015 7:19am

Hi Elton.

When you use the wizard it automatically adds what's needed which means the Gen1 machine actually adds the Legacy NIC and the Gen2 machine automatically adds a regular NIC.

Both machines are connected to an external switch.

Both machines boot fine into the MDT/WDS where I give them a name and they start to install.

It's when the machines reach "Getting Ready" and the circle begins rolling that a popup states it cannot run on this hardware.

February 25th, 2015 1:47pm

That error that you see within the VM is not a Hyper-V error.  It is an error reported by the WinPE image of the WDS image as it decides if the image is valid for the target system you are trying to install to.

Did you build your image within a VM and then capture it?

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February 25th, 2015 2:26pm

I'm not sure it's WinPE that reports the error.

The installation reaches step 57 out of 90 steps and has run for about an hour before I get the error.

The OS has been installed and is starting for the first time and reaches 100% during "Getting devices ready" and then it writes "Getting Ready" and then a popup appears. I think it's very close to the first time the local administrator logs onto the computer to install apps and update from WSUS.

I think it's around the "State Restore" part of the process.

The image is built within a VM and captured here yes. It might have been build in the previous Cluster though. Perhaps that affects something. I will have to try testing.

February 26th, 2015 2:53pm

Nope, you are right, this is well into the mini-setup phase of installation, long after WinPE has done its work.

From your description it sounds as if it is some user mode device driver that is coming up late in the boot sequence.

As long as the image was built as a Generation 1 VM and is only being deployed to a Generation 1 VM you should not have problems.

The original description sounded like the image was built for specific bare metal hardware or a different virtualization platform than Hyper-V. 

So I was just double checking that, as there is no 'universal' image in the WDS world.  They are all hardware specific.

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February 26th, 2015 3:38pm

The capture was made on a Gen1 VM.  I just did a new image today and tried it on a Gen1 VM and I get the same error.

The image is a standard Windows capture from an ISO with Office applied as an application through WDS. So nothing too fancy. After the image is created I deploy the image and inject the drivers matching our hardware. So somehow a driver could be an issue.

February 27th, 2015 2:14pm

Virtual Machines do not require any driver injection.

As long as the OS is Windows 7 / 2008 R2 or later there are rudimentary virtual device drivers present.

However, when you built the VM to capture, you should have updated the Integration Components within the VM prior to capturing the VM image for deployment.

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February 27th, 2015 2:19pm

Hi Brian.

I realize they don't require drivers, I was just trying to explain our setup.
The Task Sequence has a selection profile which is set to only install matching drivers to the matching OS and only one TS is made for each OS which hasn't created any problems before; bare-metal or VM.

The way I capture a new OS is by creating a new VM and then boot into a different DeploymentShare where I simply choose the capture function where it installs a default OS I imported into WDS previously. I don't have any image where I changed any part of the setup without WDS and since it doesn't work on VMs I suppose it could be Integration Component related even though this wasn't a problem in our old cluster.

I will try and look for information regarding updating the IC.

Thank you.

March 2nd, 2015 9:00am

I tried including the x64 Integration Components as a part of an Application Install.

The image was created but I got an error stating: "Application Microsoft Hyper-V Integration Services x64" returned an unexpected return code: 60004.

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March 4th, 2015 7:49am

Integration Components MUST be installed interactively.  There is no unattended installation option.

Otherwise I am not positive what you mean by "as part of an application install" - I interpret that as some type of post OS deployment push. 

And that would be the wrong timing.  The Integration Components should eb considered part of the base OS image, not some post deployment add-on.

Personally, I am not clear what the root problem is.  I have not used WDS to deploy VMs myself, but have helped lots of folks, and set-up Citrix Provisioning Server multiple times with Hyper-V.

What are the options you are using when running sysprep?  Are you using the /mode:vm flag to force hardware detection to not happen during mini-setup?

March 4th, 2015 2:00pm

According to the web setup.exe /quiet /norestart should be valid parameters for the components.

What I mean by Applicaton Install is that there's a part of a Deployment Share where you can choose to install applications. A Task which will run at a appropriate time, e.g. Office is installed into our base image at that time. I tried including the Integration Components before the Office install creating a base image with Office 2013 and the IC.

I also tried to use the base image a create a task for VMs only where no driver what so ever gets installed - it simply installs the base image created and activates Windows and nothing more. That doesn't work either.

The problem in a nutshell is this:

I want to install via MDT/WDS. I don't care if it's a regular machine or a virtual one. Both should work.
I've created several base images (Win7_x86, Win7_x64, Win8_x64 etc.) with Office included and everything has worked fine except when I try and install Windows 8 as a VM.

I must say that I've tweaked around and tried a few things while trying to find the problem so I probably have to test some things again to make sure what I say goes but we've installed both Win7 & Win8 on regular machines without problems but I can't seem to install a Windows 8 machine via MDT/WDS for some reason as a VM - only on regular PCs.

As tested above installing via ISO works fine and creating a new image didn't help either.

The way I capture an OS is by simply write DoCapture=YES in my Deployment Share Rules section and boot into that Deployment Share (then I get a menu where I can choose to capture the machine and it simply installs the imported Windows ISO via a Standard Client Task Sequence (where it also installs Office - there's an Application Install section part of the Standard Client Task Sequence).

So really really short; the image I try to install works fine on a regular PC but won't install on Hyper-V.

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March 6th, 2015 8:54am

Right now, I am seriously thinking this is not a Hyper-V issue in any way. It is a WDS / WDS process issue.

My personal inclination is that the root of the issue lies in the "Standard Client Task Sequence".

And like I stated prior - There is no universal single image that deploys to both VMs and bare metal, so you would need specifics to each option.

March 6th, 2015 9:18am

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