Scenario 1: Installing Windows Server 2012 R2

After Windows Server 2012 R2 is installed on a virtual machine, you can install and use Arcfra VMTools. During the installation of Arcfra VMTools, all drivers for the operating system will be automatically installed. Therefore, after installing the operating system, it is recommended to install the NIC driver and the memory balloon driver by installing Arcfra VMTools.

Prerequisite

• The system disk of the virtual machine is set as the first boot device.
• The virtual machine already has a CD-ROM with the Windows Server 2012 R2 ISO image mounted.
• The virtual machine already has a CD-ROM with the Arcfra VMTools ISO image mounted.

Step 1: Installing Windows Server 2012 for a virtual machine

Follow the steps below to install the Windows operating system according to the selected system disk bus type.

Using the IDE bus

1. In the virtual machine details panel, click Start. In the pop-up dialog box, click Start to start the virtual machine.

2. In the virtual machine details panel, click Terminal to open the terminal. Then, refer to the official Windows Setup documentation from Microsoft to complete the installation of the operating system.

   After installing the operating system, refer to Step 2 below to install the NIC driver and memory driver for the virtual machine.

Using the VIRTIO bus or the SCSI bus

When installing Windows Server 2012 R2 on a virtual machine using the VIRTIO or SCSI bus, you must load the corresponding disk driver. Otherwise, the Windows Setup program will be unable to detect any available disks for operating system installation.

You can load the disk driver in the following two ways:

• Mount the Arcfra VMTools ISO image to the CD-ROM of the virtual machine. Load the driver for the corresponding disk type when selecting the installation location for the operating system.
• Mount the virtio-win driver ISO image to the CD-ROM of the virtual machine and load this driver when selecting the installation location for the operating system.

Procedure

1. In the virtual machine details panel, click Start. In the pop-up dialog box, click Start to start the virtual machine.

2. In the virtual machine details panel, click Terminal to open the terminal. Then, refer to the official Windows Setup documentation from Microsoft to complete the installation of the operating system.

3. After selecting Custom: Install Windows Only (Advanced), a prompt will appear to confirm the installation location of the operating system. If no installable disk is detected by the Windows Setup program at this point, you will need to load the appropriate driver to scan for installable disks.

4. Click Load Driver. A window to browse folders will pop up. Refer to the following instructions based on the driver loading method.

   • Load the disk driver in the Arcfra VMTools ISO image:

     In the pop-up file browser window, select the virtual disk that loads the Arcfra VMTools ISO image. Navigate through the following path: driver > 185 > viostor > 2k12R2 and select the amd64 file. Click OK.

     Information:

     • The folder to be loaded depends on the version of the Windows operating system installed and the required version of the virtio-win driver. For example, if you are installing the virtio-win-0.1.172 driver for Windows 7, the folder selection path should be: driver > 172 > viostor > w7 > amd64.
     • If you set the bus type to SCSI when creating the virtual machine, you need to load the driver for the SCSI disk type, which is located in the vioscsi folder. In this case, the folder selection path should be: driver > 185 > vioscsi > 2k12R2 > amd64.

   • Load virtio-win driver:

     In the pop-up file browser window, select the disk where the virtio-win driver is loaded and select the corresponding driver according to the Windows version.

     Information:

     The highest supported virtio-win driver version is virtio-win-0.1.229. Higher or beta versions may cause virtual machine installation failures or I/O issues.

5. Click Next to load the driver and scan for disks compatible with the current virtual machine.

6. Select the disk to install the system and click Next. Then, refer to the official Microsoft documentation to complete the installation.

   After installing the operating system, refer to Step 2 below to install the NIC driver and memory driver for the virtual machine.

Step 2: Installing the NIC driver and the memory balloon driver for a virtual machine

After the operating system is installed, you can install Arcfra VMTools to automatically install the NIC driver and the memory balloon driver for the virtual machine.

1. Double-click the CD drive that has the Arcfra VMTools ISO image mounted to enter the installation folder of Arcfra VMTools.

2. Double-click the Arcfra VMTools installation file ARCFRA_VM_TOOLS_INSTALL to start the installation.

3. During installation, a progress bar will appear and the Confirm to install VirtIO Serial Driver dialog box will pop up. Click Install to continue. When the installation is complete, close the progress bar.

4. Refresh the Device Manager list of the virtual machine. You will find Network Adapter and VirtIO Balloon Driver, indicating that the NIC driver and memory balloon driver have been successfully installed.

Next steps

If the virtual machine uses the QXL graphic adapter, you need to install the QXL driver after the operating system is installed to enable QXL support. For detailed procedure, refer to the section on Installing the QXL driver on Windows virtual machines.