virtualbox.org

Hi

I need to build a VM based on Windows 2012 R2 64 bit Standard. I downloaded an evaluation copy from Microsoft's website, but when I start the Virtual Machine to install the guest OS, I get the following error:
As I have seen messages of people who have installed Win2012R2 successfully, what am I doing wrong?

Host OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 1809
Guest OS: Windows Server 2012 R2 64 bit Standard
VirtualBox: 6.0.4
In the UEFI BIOS Virtualization options are enabled and memory protection is enabled.
VirtualBox settings: see attached screenshot Steps to reproduce:
1) Start the VM
2) Choose to boot from DVD to start up the ISO image attached to the virtual Optical disk.
3) You see "Loading files", followed by the VirtualBox logi
4) The error message occurs.

Attached the log file.

Neither EFI nor ICH9 is enabled by default in the Win2k12 template, could you explain why you enabled them?

mpack wrote:Neither EFI nor ICH9 is enabled by default in the Win2k12 template, could you explain why you enabled them?

I thought that Windows 2012 could only be installed under EFI. I have turned the option off and I switched ICH9 back to the default.

When I restart, I'm looking at a black screen with a blinking cursor in it. The log hangs at

I would perform an md5 checksum comparison on the ISO.

Also, it would be good if you cleared up an area of confusion: you have "Win2012R2_Standard_64bit_evaluation_v2.ISO" mounted in the VM. However the template you chose was "Windows 2016 (64bit)". Are you aware of the mismatch?

While I'm here: you should not be assigning 4 cores to the VM on a 4 core host. That doesn't leave a lot for any software running on the host OS (including VirtualBox). The guest should have no more than 2 cores.

I see you have 8GB of host RAM, and assigned 7GB to the guest OS, leaving 1GB for the host OS. That doesn't sound like good arithmetic to me. It leaves the host with half of the 2GB RAM minimum system requirement recommended by Microsoft (which is probably optimistic anyway). I'd halve that.

Also, does a server OS really need 3D acceleration? Do you intend to run AutoCAD on it?

The idea of a VM is to use resources that otherwise go to waste, not to starve the host of those resources. Good performance comes from a balance.

Yes, the mismatch was a glitch. Too much options toggling going on in order find the issue through trial-and-error. When I changed it back to "Windows 2012 R2", there was no change.

The host has 8 cores (i7 with 4 cores and 8 threads - VirtualBox sees each thread as a core), so half of them are assigned to the VR. We can bring that down to 2 or 3 though.

The host has 16Gb of RAM of which 6Gb is assigned to the virtual machine.

Server OS does not need 3D acceleration. I enabled it because during my Google searches, someone recommended it turned on.

But even after I make all the changes you recommend, the result is still the same: Windows Server does not start the installation. With EFI enabled, I get the error in the original message. With EFI disabled, I get a blinking cursor.

Here is the latest logfile after I made the changes. I continue to have just a black screen with a blinking cursor.

Threads are not cores. Your host has a four core CPU, and VirtualBox only cares about cores. Search for previous discussions on this subject matter.

00:00:02.261643 HM: HMR3Init: Attempting fall back to NEM: VT-x is not available

You must have enabled Hyper-v on the host? VirtualBox v6 has the beginnings of support for running under Windows Hypervisor Platform, but it greatly reduces performance when it works, and frankly doesn't work very well yet.

Just like mpack said:

00:00:02.261643 HM: HMR3Init: Attempting fall back to NEM: VT-x is not available
00:00:02.320420 NEM: WHvCapabilityCodeHypervisorPresent is TRUE, so this might work...

It seems that you have Hyper-V enabled. You can tell if this is true from the status bar where the "slow" icon () shows. Look in the "Control Panel" » "Programs and Features" » "Turn Windows features on or off", and make sure that the none of the following are active:

• Hyper-V
• Virtual Machine Platform
• Windows Hypervisor Platform

If VirtualBox is running without Hyper-V enabled, where proper, hardware virtualization is actually available, then the standard virtualization icon () would show. Disable Hyper-V in your host and see what happens...

PepsiCan wrote:I continue to have just a black screen with a blinking cursor.

That's your VM trying to boot, albeit really, really slow. If you choose to keep Hyper-V enabled, it will boot in 3-4 hours...

PS. For future reference, you should completely shut down the VM before grabbing the VBox.log. Then ZIP it before attaching it to your response.

Hi

Thank you both for the advice so far. I looked for Hyper-V but it is not installed on my machine (see attached screenshot). Yet at the same time, the icons in the VM indicate that something is not right and the logfile speaks for itself. What is it that could be causing this? I have Visual Studio 2017 and MS SQL Server and SSMS running on this machine. Could any of that perhaps be the cause?

I have a vague recollection that VS2013 and later may enable virtualization features for debug purposes. Very vague, so possibly completely wrong.

But I'd also start with the basics, making sure that VT-x is enabled in the host BIOS.

PepsiCan wrote:I have Visual Studio 2017 and MS SQL Server and SSMS running on this machine

Similarly to mpack I have a vague recollection not only about VS2017, but for the SQL Server, and if I'm not completely mistaken it was the Express version. Tried to find a reference but I failed. Uninstall either/both, or see what options you are given during their installation. Avoid any hardware assisted/accelerated/etc. features.

I found the issue

Windows Defender. Virtualization-Based Security was enabled. That launches a Hypervisor regardless of whether Hyper-V has been fully installed or not. You need to go into Group Policy and disable Virtualization-Based Services and then suddenly the VM boots straight to the Windows Install screen. Also, the yellow turtle with the V is now gone and we see the normal V inside the blue square at the bottom right.

The problem is that in order to get VirtualBox to work, one has to reduce the security on the host machine. Not sure if that is desirable. I will run some further experiments and then close the call unless someone else has anything further to contribute.

@mpack @Socratis Your input was invaluable! Without your help I would never have found the issue.

PepsiCan wrote: The problem is that in order to get VirtualBox to work, one has to reduce the security on the host machine. Not sure if that is desirable.

As mentioned above, VirtualBox v6 has the beginnings of a feature that will allow it to work within the Windows Hypervisor framework. Very early beginnings. In a year or two it won't be a problem. For now the unofficial advice is to give Hyper-v the boot, or switch entirely to Hyper-v for your VM needs.

See the discussion in this thread. Anything in the OS which uses hardware virtualization will prevent VirtualBox from using it.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=92639

The error message you included in your original post was a very common one in this forum when Windows 8.1 was released.

In my case, after disabling Virtual Machine Platform, the guest Windows Server boot expertly, but Virtual Machine Platform is used by WSL2, which means I cannot use WSL2 and guest Windows Server at the same time.