Cannot install Windows Server 2025 as guest

[JessicaWren]

Problem/Bug:
Cannot install the Windows Server 2025 insider preview as a guest VM. After booting from the ISO, the VM prints "Loading files...", shows the blue Windows logo, then hangs at that blue logo forever. When using EFI, it doesn't even get to the blue Windows logo, it just hangs at "VirtualBox" forever.

Host Details:
VirtualBox 7.0.12 r159484 (Qt5.15.8.0)
Debian Linux 12.1
6.5.0-0.deb12.1-amd64 kernel
AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU with Radeon 780M graphics
All other Windows and Linux guest VMs work fine.

Guest VM Details:
Using the latest insider preview of Windows Server 2025 (vNext) as of 12.Dec.2023, build number 26010.
I have tried many variations on EFI, TPM, chosen OS, CPUs, Secure Boot, PAE/NX, Nested VT-x/AMD-V, Nested Paging, Paravirtualization Interface, etc., but no luck.

Any advice? Thank you!

[scottgus1]

Have you tried any supported non-Preview OS's?

[JessicaWren]

Have you tried any supported non-Preview OS's?

Thanks for responding. I'm not sure what you're asking. I have a dozen other guest VMs that work just fine. A co-worker has Server 2025 running in VMware Workstation, but I don't want to install VMware just to get this one VM running (under the hood, it should be nearly identical to Windows 11 version 23H2, which runs fine as a guest on my machine).

[scottgus1]

I have a dozen other guest VMs that work just fine. ... Windows 11 version 23H2 ... runs fine as a guest on my machine).

That's what I was asking about. No indication you had other VMs with standard supported OS's was given: all the other VMs could have also been preview OS's, so that was important to clarify. Also, your 7940HS CPU sounds close to a 7840HS, which has been having some problems with Virtualbox lately.

So now that we know Virtualbox is working on your host, let's look at a log from the 2025 VM.

Please start the VM from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the VM from within the VM's OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the VM with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the VM in the main Virtualbox window's VM list, choose Show in Explorer/Finder/File Manager. In the "Logs" subfolder, zip the VM's "vbox.log", and post the zip file, using the forum's Attachments tab. (Configure your host OS to show all extensions so you can find the "vbox.log", not "vbox.log.1", etc.)

[JessicaWren]

Thank you! Zip file attached. Note that the OS never installed, this was booting from the ISO to get the OS installed to begin with, then having to power off when the installation made no progress.

[fth0]

Also, your 7940HS CPU sounds close to a 7840HS, which has been having some problems with Virtualbox lately.

FWIW, the AMD Ryzen 7840HS and 7940HS CPUs generally share the same VirtualBox problem. On the OP's host, the BIOS provides the L3 cache information both in the old and new CPUID leaves, so the known problem wasn't triggered here.

Other than that, ~400 MB have been read from the ISO file. The host had only 4.3 GB of RAM available when the VM (with 5.5 GB configured) was started, but I'm not convinced that it played a role here, because only ~600 MB of RAM were allocated by VirtualBox so far.

[scottgus1]

With fth0's diagnosis in mind, I'd say that either the ISO is bad (an attempt to install it on a physical PC would determine that) or Virtualbox isn't ready for Server 2025 yet.

Windows Insider Previews sometimes have trouble either as Virtualbox hosts or VMs. But the final releases will be ready. The devs don't try to support Previews, but they are aware of them and the changes the Previews introduce, so as to be as ready as possible for the final release.

You can try a Bugtracker ticket if you'd like to.

[JessicaWren]

Thank you for looking into it, I appreciate it very much. I will keep trying as new OS builds and new versions of VBox come out.

I created at ticket for this, mostly as a "heads up" to the VBox team since there will be more chatter about this in the next few months as more people try to install the Server 2025 preview.

Ticket:
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/21933

[JessicaWren]

The host had only 4.3 GB of RAM available when the VM (with 5.5 GB configured) was started ...

Interesting, my host machine has 64GB of RAM running Debian, so when I run the "free -h" command, here is the output:

Mem:
total 62Gi
used 9.7Gi
free 51Gi
shared 65Mi
buff/cache 1.2Gi
available 52Gi
swap: 0

I doubt this makes a difference, but my host filesystem is ZFS, so the installation ISO and the VBox VDI file are probably both cached in RAM. My other VMs run just fine on this same host.

FYI, I switched my guest VM to use the LsiLogic controller and enabled "Use Host I/O Cache", but it didn't help.

[scottgus1]

my host machine has 64GB of RAM running Debian

Yes, this is what the log shows:

00:00:00.619846 Host RAM: 63521MB (62.0GB) total, 4495MB (4.3GB) available
00:00:00.649434 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000163d00000 (5 969 543 168, 5.5 GiB)

So you do show 64 (62) GB, but 58GB is used up by other processes at the time of the start of the VM.

[fth0]

I have an idea to try out (from an IRC chat with klaus some weeks ago):

While the VM is not running, open a terminal and execute VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --hpet on (don't forget to replace the VM name ). Please report back if it makes a difference.

[JessicaWren]

It worked! Thank you!

There were bad screen artifacts during install, I had to click where the "Next" button should be, even though I couldn't see it sometimes, but the install progressed and now the VM is running just fine so far without any screen artifacts! Yay! Vielen Dank!

Update:
I've now created two VMs this way, one with the "Desktop Experience" and the other without, i.e., Server Core. Both work fine so far. The VMs do not require Secure Boot to install or run. Guest Additions version 7.0.12.28412 installed without a problem too.

To summarize, in case anyone just jumps down to this post in the dicussion:

1) Create a new VM and choose Windows 11 as the OS.

2) Before the first boot attempt, run:

VBoxManage modifyvm "YourVmName" --hpet on

[fth0]

You're welcome, and thanks for reporting back!

[JessicaWren]

Good news, with the latest build of Server 2025 (build 26080) as of March 21, it is no longer necessary to set HPET, the OS installs just fine using VBox 7.0.14. The extension installed fine too. This was tested on a Debian 13/Trixie host. Thank you again for the previous help! I will update the bug report too.

[fth0]

FWIW, the issue has been fixed in VirtualBox 7.0.14.