VMWare - Installing Windows Server 2012 from HP Media CD

Recently I was assigned to install Windows Server 2012 R2 from a HP Media CD into a HP Proliant ML10 v2 server with VMware Hypervisor.

At first I did encountered some roadblocks whereby the media doesn't allow such installation as it is detecting the SMBIOS details (which in this case was created by VMWware) thus the installation failed with error message "Incorrect BIOS detected and must be installed on HP Proliant servers.....blah... blah... blah"

Well, HP does have a workaround on this and VMware acknowledged it too.

Just very simple steps :-

1. Browse to the newly created VM guest folder (example : VSVR01) in the "datastore".

2. Look for a filename called "VSVR01.vmx" and download it to your local computer.

3. Edit the file using notepad program and add the following line into the file :-

• smbios.ReflectHost = "TRUE"

4. Save the file and upload it back into the original location "datastore" and overwrite when prompted.

Note : You might want to save a copy of the original file before any attempts on the modifications.

5. Once done, now you can install the Windows Server 2012 R2 from HP media CD, the rest was just a mere follow-on-screen instructions.