HP OEM Installation

[beerdini]

When we purchased the server that we are runing ESXi on, my company also purchased a Windows license which came on an HP branded OEM installation CD. After setting up ESXi, I wanted to install that instance of Win2008 on a virtual instance, but when I boot to the CD, I receive a message that the hardware is not supported. I am assuming that this is because the CD is doing its hardware/bios scan and finding the virtual hardware instead of the HP hardware so is failing. I saw that HP has an ESXi solution available for download and was wondering if anyone knows if that runs into the same issue as the VMWare version, or if there is another way to boot to the OEM instance.

I'm currently waiting for the ISO to download from MS so could be waiting for a while, and if I were able to get this running in the mean time without having to reload the server with the HP version, it would be great, but I could live with having to use theirs.

Thanks!

[pmartinVCP]

You will need to add the line below to the .vmx file for the machine(s) you want to install the OEM version on.

SMBIOS.reflectHost = TRUE

This allows the ESXi server to "see" the OEM bios during the install check.

Just download the file from the store, edit it then upload over the orginal file.

[beerdini]

Thank you! After seeing the code and knowing what to search for I see it everywhere. As a newbie on the boards (and virtualization) I'm still trying to figure out all of the lingo and appreciate how helpful everyone has been. I've been to some forums where you get short (rude) and condecending replies along the lines of "why haven't you used the search feature" to find things. Thanks again!