Installing WHS 2011 (64 bit) on Windows 10 Hyper-V

Question

I'm trying to install Windows Home Server 2011 (WHS 2011) in a VM in Hyper-V on Windows 10 (upgraded from Windows 8/8.1). I can't seem to get it working. It looks like you have to use Generation 1, and it makes it all the way through the Server 2008 part of the install, but fails after the first real boot. It loads up explorer and then attempts to load the WHS 2011-specific setup stuff, but fails every time like this:

I've tried looking through the logs it generates but haven't found anything that sticks out as a problem (there's a lot of stuff in there). I have recreated the problem four times now with various guest machine settings.

Has anyone successfully installed WHS 2011 on Windows 10 Hyper-V or encountered this WHS 2011 issue and found some way to overcome it?

Answer 1

Given the status of this question as a tumbleweed, I suspect that the number of people using WHS 2011 must be extraordinarily low. I happened to not need the special features of WHS 2011, so I was able to bring up the task manager, start regedit, and remove the WHS setup from startup and get the system into a workable state. For now this is the best option I can find. If anyone else finds a way to solve the problem completely and retain the WHS-specific features, I'll switch my acceptance to them.

Answer 2

I had the same problem. Tried a million combinations, but here's what worked:

• Use a Legacy Network Adapter (this may / may not be required)
• Disable Dynamic Memory
• During install, choose to NEVER CHECK FOR UPDATES

That last one is what really tripped me up. The installer / server config process automatically runs a bunch of windows updates, one of which eventually fails, and the whole thing ends up lost, eventually putting up that failures screen.

After successfully getting through the server configuration, you can enable updates and start that very exciting multi-hour windows update application. First round will fail, but works after attempting again. Make sure to keep checking for more updates until you get a clean scan.