Windows Server 2012 R2 on MacBook Pro

I have just gotten a MacBook Pro for work and like all the other notebooks before it, the first thing I would do is to install Windows Server on it. Afterall, a notebook is only worthy if it can run Windows Server. ;)

There were very little resources on installing Windows Server 2012 R2 on a MacBook Pro and that's the reason I'm writing this. Being a Windows user for a long time, this is an exciting experience for me. I have successfully installed Windows Server 2012 R2 (with update) on my 15" MacBook Pro with Retina display so you can be assured that it works (or atleast most part of it).

I'm a follower of official recommended practices, therefore I used Apple's Boot Camp for this. Make sure you have downloaded the Windows Server .iso, prepared an external USB keyboard and two USB flash drives for stand by.

The Boot Camp Assistant instructions are pretty straight-forward. I will just highlight some of the extra things that you need to do in order to have a smooth installation. Otherwise, you may spend a good amount of time trying to figure out whadahell-is-wrong like me.

Important! Before you begin, make sure you reset the NVRAM. Follow the steps here. If you did not complete this step, the installation of Windows will run until finish and then fail with the following error:

"Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."

After that, your Mac will restart with a white screen and shutdown itself - a.k.a. White Screen of Death (WSOD). You will no longer to be able to boot up from this point. If you are unlucky enough to hit such situation... don't panic! Restart your Mac and hold on to the Option (alt) key. This should allow you to boot back to your OS X and start all over again.

1. From OS X, launch Boot Camp Assistant (you can type "Boot Camp" in Spotlight)

2. Select all the 3 tasks available:

• Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk
• Download the latest Windows Support software from Apple
• Install Windows 7 or later version (Screenshot showing remove because I already have Windows installed)

Tip: You need to use the first option to let Boot Camp create the bootable USB. I tried creating it manually from a Windows machine and it doesn't work.

3. Provide the path to the Windows Server .iso image and select one of the USB flash drives to copy it into. The other one will be used to store the Boot Camp drivers.

4. Create a partition for Windows.

5. The system will reboot and Windows installation will commence.

6. During the setup of Windows, make sure you select the partition named BOOTCAMP to install Windows. Do not mess with the other partitions!

7. Once the Windows Server installation is completed and properly configured, you will be presented with an interesting problem - The press CTRL+ALT+DEL to login screen. There is no way you can do that at this point in time - you can try it if you don't trust me. :p This is where your external USB keyboard is required. Plug it in and login. The Boot Camp drivers should automatically be installed (and if not, you can launch it from the USB flash drive).

Tip: You can disable the CTRL+ALT+DEL screen if you want. Follow instructions here.

8. Once everything is done, reboot and you are ready to go!

9. Before enabling Hyper-V or installing Visual Studio 2013, reboot to OS X then go to System Preferences -> Startup Disk and select the the BOOTCAMP disk. Restart the system. If you skip this step you will receive an error message stating that "Hardware Virtualization is not enabled in the BIOS" (and you can't access the BIOS on a Mac).

Note: I have heard interesting myths from friends telling me that the keyboard is pretty messed up in Mac, as in the keys are different from Windows i.e. can't do CTRL+C and CTRL+P to copy-paste. This is not entirely true. Once you have the Boot Camp drivers installed, the keyboard will function like normal and you can even do CTRL+ALT+DEL or WinKey (replaced with command key) +L to lock screen.

Extra Tip: OH NOES! How do we do screen capture since there isn't a Print Screen button on the keyboard? The key combo is Fn+Shift+F11.

10. To enable right-click, go to Control Panel -> Boot Camp -> Trackpad and set Secondary Click to Bottom Right Corner.

11. The WiFi may not be working. To fix the problem, download the Boot Camp Support Software from Apple's site and run the Broadcom Wireless x64 drivers in the Drivers\Broadcom  folder.

There you go! No you have a fully functional Windows Server 2012 R2 on your MacBook Pro that you can play with.