Install, Template and Deploy Server 2012 in ESXi 4.1

I hit a snag attempting to build a 2012 server on a client’s vSphere 4.1 dev environment, where the installer hit a BSOD (now with added 2012 ‘sad face’ icon) and kept restarting. jmattson on the VMware forums suggest that you need to do a quick hack on the VM’s virtual BIOS as server 2012 doesn’t support the PIIX 4 southbridge emulation that ESXi 4.x uses.

This is done by copying the BIOS file from the link above to your virtual machine config directory and appending the following lines to the .vnx file:

bios440.filename = "bios.440.rom"
mce.enable = "TRUE"
cpuid.hypervisor.v0 = "FALSE"
vmGenCounter.enable = "FALSE"

This won’t magically enable VM-Generation ID so you won’t be able to take advantage of the advanced virtual capabilities, but you will at least be able to install and run the OS.

I have no idea whether this is a MSFT or VMware supported config for your production environment, I have no requirement for this to be in production as the client is in the process of building a series of new ESXi 5.1-based clusters for that. YMMV so check with the vendors first.

NB if you do this for a machine which you subsequently convert to template then you will need to re-add the ROM file to the config directory of each new VM that you deploy from this template as it doesn’t copy it across automatically. Your deployed VM will not start, with an error:

/vmfs/volumes/mydatastore/bios.440.rom