How To Deploy Windows Server 2012 on DELL UEFI Now–Notes From The field

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The most current UEFI OS Deployment on a R810 is a bit finicky when you want to deploy Windows Server 2012 using the normal procedure & selecting “Other OS” as it’s obvious that the entry for Windows Server  2012 is not in there yet. The problem is that the Windows installer doesn’t seem to create the best practice UEFI partitions. It just seems to create a 320MB System Reserved partition and the rest is for your OS installation as Primary partition. In a good (by the book UEFI) install you’d see a layout like this (from Sample: Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions by Using Windows Setup):

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The reason for this seems to be that the firmware is still not 100% up to date for how Windows Server 2012 deals with UEFI installations. This I learned via my very helpful twitter friend Florian Klaffenbach

While an update for the system firmware is in the works and won’t be to long away let me share you how I dealt with this issue. It’s a bit more work but it get’s the job done. At least for me on a R810 with BIOS version 2.7.4.

I’m copying and adapting the step by step from Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Early Adopter Guide – Dell here and adapting it to how I worked around it. It’s “magic” Winking smile.

Installing Using Dell Unified Server Configurator

  1. Connect the keyboard, monitor, mouse, and any additional peripherals to your system
  2. Turn on the system and the attached peripherals.
  3. Press <F10> in the POST to start the System Services. The Initializing UEFI. Please wait… and the Entering System Services…Starting Unified Server Configurator messages are displayed.
  4. In the Unified Server Configurator window, if you want to configure hardware, diagnostics, or set changes, click the appropriate option. If no changes are required, press OS Deployment. => you can opt to start with a cleanly build VDisk. Which is best and should suffice. But is doesn’t. We’ll clean the disk later anyway later on in Step 14.
  5. In the Operating System Deployment window, click Deploy OS. The Configure or Skip RAID window is displayed. If Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) is configured, the window displays the existing RAID configuration details.
  6. Select Go directly to OS Deployment. If RAID is not yet configured, configure it at this time.
  7. Click Next. The Select Operating System window is displayed with a list of compatible operating systems.
  8. Choose Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and click Next.NOTE: If Microsoft Windows Server 2012 is not listed, choose any other operating system
  9. Choose whether you want to deploy the operating system in UEFI or BIOS mode, and click Next => I do not get this choice if UEFI is already on in the BIOS settings
  10. In the Insert OS Media window, insert the Windows Server 2012 media and click Next.
  11. In the Reboot the System screen, follow the instructions on the screen and click Finish. If a Windows operating system is already installed on your system, the following message is displayed: Press any key to boot from the CD/DVD …Press any key to begin the installation. If you used a clean VDisk this is no issue
  12. In the Windows Setup screen, select the appropriate option for Language, Time and Currency Format, and Keyboard or Input Method.
  13. Click Next to continue.
  14. STOP => Select to REPAIR your system and launch a command line. Form there you start diskpart and run following commands on the disk where you want to deploy Windows Server 2012:
    • select disk 0
    • clean
    • convert gpt

      In my case this is Disk 0. This is what the installer should be able to do automatically with a clean disk any way but it doesn’t happen.

      Now DO NOT navigate to the X: root and launch setup again. Shut exit the repair console and shutdown the server.

  15. Start the server
  16. Press <F10> in the POST to start the System Services. The Initializing UEFI. Please wait… and the Entering System Services…Starting Unified Server Configurator messages are displayed. => DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ANYMORE. It will take longer than expected but you will boot into the installation of Windows 2012 again.
  17. In the Windows Setup screen, select the appropriate option for Language, Time and Currency Format, and Keyboard or Input Method.
  18. Click Next to continue.
  19. On the next page, click Install Now.
  20. In the Operating System Install screen, select the operating system you want to install. Click Next. The License Terms window is displayed, click Next.
  21. In the Which Type of Installation Do You Want screen, click Custom: Install Windows only (advanced), if it is not selected already.
  22. In the Where do you want to install Windows screen, specify the partition on which you want to install the operating system. To create a partition and begin installation:
    1. Click New
    2. Specify the size of the partition in MB, and click Apply. A Windows might create additional partition for system files message is displayed. => NOW THE UEFI partitions on the GPT disk are created Open-mouthed smile.
    3. Click OK.Select the newly-created operating system partition and click Next.
      The Installing Windows screen is displayed and the installation process begins. After the operating system is installed the system reboots. You must set the administrator password before you can log in for the first time
  23. In the Settings screen, enter the password, confirm the password, and click Finish.
    The operating system installation is complete.

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Now, while this worked for me on the Dell R810 with BIOS 2.7.4,  I give no guarantees whatsoever. You’ll have to test it yourself or wait for the firmware update that is coming soon. Any way, perhaps it helps some of you out there!

The Right Stuff

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You all probably know that to get a difficult job done well and fast, you need the right people in the right place at the right moment in time. Those people also need the right tools. This requires people who can think on their feet, people who are resourceful and who will always seek and find opportunities under adverse conditions.

The placement and timing of these resources and assets is more than just management of some table matching names to roles. It’s not enough to have the right resources and skill sets. You need to know who and what is available and what these or they can contribute. Management is often not very good at this, so in a crisis they need to let go and rely on their people. Free Tip: you can’t start building a team when the crisis arrives 😉

It’s the boots on the ground will have to deal with the issues at hand and take the decisions. In a crisis time is of the essence. There is no place for too many layers of management, let alone micro management, only the ones with the right responsibilities insight and knowledge are needed and helpful. The decisions become tactical and operational within the context of the situation at hand and it its relation to the entire environment. So they have to be made by people who preferably know the environment well and have a very good skillset, drive and motivation. Basically this is what I refer to when I talk about the right stuff.

If you have ever worked or work in that sort of environment you know what I’m talking about. The knowledge that no matter where you are going for whatever reason, you’re doing so with a team of very skilled people who are the very best in the business, at the top of their game and ready to roll with any situation thrown at them. They are capable to react in a moment’s notice and focus entirely on the job at hand. If you’re interested in building such a team I suggest you select your team members very carefully. Head count doesn’t mean jack shit if they are the wrong people for the job and the team. Don’t ever lower the bar, it’s there for a very good reason.

This year I had misfortune of having to respond to two major HVAC disasters at night in a weekend. I had the good fortune of having the right stuff at my disposal. There is no “On Call”, there is no monetary compensation. This team is my crew and they are all volunteers who will do what is needed when it is needed. Why because they have professional pride and know that at these moments the very survival of the business they work for depends on them acting fast and correctly. To them it’s not about “somebody should do this” or ”that’s not my job”. It’s not about “this should be taken care of” or “I never had a template telling me what to do”. No, they step forward and get it done. This weekend, from the very first alert, 4 people were mobilized in 30 minutes and acted at the speed of light. This led to the emergency shutdown of a data center in a city 60 kilometers way to prevent a catastrophic meltdown of millions of euros in hardware (not even trying to put a value on the data loss). Two people were acting remotely and 2 (including me) were heading over there to have boots on the ground. The reason for this is that “the away team” could deal with anything that couldn’t be handled remotely and coordinate with facility management. Having people on site is important to all involved (two is preferable for safety reasons) for assessing the situation and for the sake of speed. More people often becomes less efficient as numbers are not the same as capability.

So to my team, I’m proud of you. I quote Beckwith “I’d rather go down the river with 7 studs than with a 100 shitheads”. You all know you’ve got the right stuff. Be proud of that!

Windows Server 2012 RTM in Production as Backup Media Server

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As Brad Anderson suggested a few times this year we are leading our businesses to a better IT future. Here’s a quick screen shot of one of our backups media agent servers hooked up to bunch of NL-SAS disks (150TB). One host (older model, no 10Gbps yet, running Windows 2008 R2) is sending backups over its dedicated 1Gbps interface to this media agent server who has a 10Gbps interface. Performance and traffic looks great Smile. I love it when a plan comes together!

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This is what I looks like at host being backed up

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Now we’ll see what magic Data Deduplication can do for us with the RTM bits!

Windows Server 2012 KMS Service Activation

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Now we have the Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 RTM bit form our Volume License we need to get some housekeeping done. The first thing we do is setup or update our KMS Service.

In our case it is running on Windows Server 2008 R2 so we need to do a couple of things.

Install the following update: An update is available for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 KMS hosts to support Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as described in KB2691586. This is also the place where you can request this hotfix.  If you don’t install this hotfix registering a Windows Server 2012  KMS will throw an Error: 0xC004F050 The Software Licensing Service reported that the product key is invalid

So request the hotfix and install it from an elevated command prompt. Just follow the instructions and you’ll be fine Smile

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Once you’ve clicked OK the installation will start

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After that’s finished you will be asked to restart the server. Do so. Just restarting the KMS service ("net stop sppsvc" and "net start sppsvc") doesn’t suffice.

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Now we have that out the way we can start putting our brand new KMS key into action.

Let’s take a look at what is already running:

slmgr.vbs /dlv => clearly the Windows 2008 R KMS key
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Uninstall the current KMS key using slmgr.vbs /upk, please use an elevated command prompt Winking smile

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Now you can install the new KMS key. The key listed here is obviously a demo one Winking smile If you run in to any issues here, restarting the KMS Service can help. Try that first.

slmgr.vbs /ipk NOPEI-AMNOT-GIVIN-GITTO-YOU!!

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Now activate your brandnew KMS key running slmgr.vbs /ato

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Show what’s up and running now by running slmgr.vbs /dlv again and as you can see we’re in business to activate all our Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 hosts. Life is good Smile

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