Activate Server 2012 R2 on VSphere/ESXi 5.5

[Darwyn99]

Hi,

I've run into a recent problem where Server 2012 R2 Datacenter guests will not automatically activate their license on VSphere 5.5/ESXi during the SCCM OSD deployment process.  When looking at the logs of the KMS server, it appears that the guest OS is never even talking to the KMS server.  When i run slmgr.vbs /ato manually on the guest once the OS is available, it activates just fine.  What's strange is that physical systems and Hyper-V guests activate fine during the OSD deployment process.  It's just VMWare guests that are not activating. 

I originally thought all of this was a fluke and didn't pinpoint the problem was specific to VMWare until just today.  My first record of a system not activating was May 4th and I can consistently reproduce the issue every time.  

Prior to May 4th I was testing OSD deployments of Server 2012 R2 and they were activating successfully (from what I remember).  May 4th is not a hard date though, so I can't pinpoint what may have changed in our environment around that time. 

Has anyone seen anything like this themselves?

Thanks

[JPM300]

These may be a silly questions, but the 2012 R2 guests can ping the KMS and everything fine?  Also if you are deploying VM's with SCCM can your windows PE deployment image ping the same systems? and or has the VMNET3 drivers pre-loaded into them.  What does your systems us as a NIC when deployed, VMNET3, Flex, or E1000?

Also if your looking for a way to tie in Vmware Orchestrator and SCCM 2012 with information passing back and forth let me know and I can forward you some information on that process.

[Darwyn99]

Yep, the guests can ping the KMS just fine.  I can actually manually run the slmgr.vbs /ato command on the guest that hasn't activated (after the OSD deployment process has finished), it queries DNS, finds our KMS server and then activates.  If i leave the server sitting after the deployment process, it never even tries to activate.  We've looked at the event logs of the KMS server and can see other servers (Hyper-V Guests, physical machines, server 2012 r2 and server 2008 r2 servers) that are contacting it and activating, but VMWare systems that are running 2012 R2 don't even attempt to communicate with the KMS unless I manually run the slmgr.vbs script.  Also, VMWare Server 2008 R2 servers activate just fine also.  This is strictly VMWare Server 2012 R2 systems. 

I haven't tested it yet, but i assume the WinPE can ping the KMS also.  By the time it would attempt to activate i think you'd be into the Server OS.  If i get time, i'll try and test that.  I do thave the VMNet3 drivers pre-loaded into WinPE and they also get installed to the OS during the OSD process. 

And i've been trying to pinpoint when this first started by looking at some email history and I'm 99% sure i had a few systems actually activate, then around April 29th that stopped working and since then no VMWare systems have activated.  So i'm going to talk with our ESXi admin and see if he remembers anything that changed around then. 

But i still want to query the community and see if anyone else has experienced this. 

[JPM300]

Hmmm that is strange.  It's odd that it will manually register but just not pull the KMS when running as a Guest VM in VMware.  You could see if your ESXi admin updated the hosts and if he has any hosts that are still on a previous patch level or version number he/she can vmotion them over to the older version and you can try again.

If you find a solution please update us here as I'm curious as to why this happened

[Darwyn99]

Still no solution.  I checked with the ESXi Admin and all systems are on the same patch level and version number.  I did some further testing and went back and to pre-March and pre-April Windows Update and Server 2012 R2 U1 images to see if it was potentially a particular Windows Update issue, but none of those systems are activating either. 

[JPM300]

Check your KMS server and see if there is any logs in there when it tries to register, maybe give a clue as to why its not.

[Darwyn99]

I checked the KMS server logs with the KMS admin and we didn't see the server make any requests in the event logs as far as we could tell.  No errors, warnings or information events for any new server builds when on VMWare.

I did some more testing with these results:

Use the install.wim from the source folder on the OS ISO - didn't activate whether it was straight from the install.wim or when i had added any updates to it through offline servicing.

Build and capture a wim from the source files - Did activate whether i had updates on it or not, however, i have a different issue related to certificates once the task sequence is done that i can't figure out

Install from source files in the OS Task Sequence - it does activate

So right now I'm moving on.  Since I can manually activate it after the install.wim is installed, I'm trying to add a step to my task sequence to activate Windows if it's a VMWare system.  This is working but I'm having SCCM client issues, which I know is out of the scope of this forum. 

This is frustrating because SCCM OSD was working great and then this happened and now I'm having to come up with workarounds and I still haven't found the root cause of the issue. 

[JPM300]

Okay sorry I couldn't help more, if its still an issue later on send me a PM or open a new thread and we can try and tackle it again another time.

Hope you get it going!

[Darwyn99]

Ok i have this narrowed down.  I'm installing VMWare Tools during the task sequence as one of the last steps.  When I remove that step from my TS, windows activates fine and the client authentication certificate autoenrolls.  My original VMWare Tools package is version 9.4.0.1399439.  I've packaged up version  9.4.5.1734305 and deployed it in my TS and tested it and it has the same activation issues.  Version 9.4.0.1399439 works fine on my Server 2008 R2 TS.  I haven't tested 9.4.5...  yet.

What lead me to this was were a few warnings in the application event logs:

[ warning] [vmusr:vmtoolsd] Failed registration of app type 2 (Signals) from plugin unity.

and

[ warning] [vmsvc:autoUpgrade] vmx returned Autoupgrade is not supported for guest.initiateUpgradeAtShutdown.

I never worried about those before since VMWare TOols was working for Server 2008 R2 OS deployments but I should have keyed in on that sooner.

So at this point, i'm trying various things to get VMWare tools working during the SCCM OSD TS for Server 2012 R2.  Based on my initial testing, it looks like I can manually install VMWare Tools after the OSD task sequence, once the OS has activated and the client auth cert has autoenrolled, but i'd really like to get it integrated into my TS.

My process for building the package is to mount the VMWare Tools ISO on a VM that needs it, and copying the files off the CD to my sourcefile location.  I am not modifying the sourcefiles in any way.  I then use the command line to install: 

setup64.exe /s /v/qn

So a very vanilla installation.  I've looked at the KB articles regarding the two warnings I posted above.  As a quick test, I deleted the unity.dll file (referenced in the KB article for the first warning above) from the VMWare Tools local install folder after an OS Deployment, then i rebooted the machine, but that didn't cause the OS to automatically activate.

So, I've got more testing to do, but is anyone aware of compatibility issues with VMWare Tools and Server 2012 R2, or at least when you deploy it via SCCM? 

[JPM300]

How are you executing the VMware Tool in SCCM ? I know powershell commands won't work until you upgrade to SCCM 2012 R2, aside from that it shouldn't have any issues with the way you are pacakaging the VMware tools....hmmmm odd.  Good work though finding the root of the problem.

What stage in your task sequence are you installing the Vmware Tools?

[Rualdonsta]

Hello Darwyn99,

We ran into the same problem. we created an .CMD which these rules

@ECHO OFF

%~dp0setup64.exe /S /v"/qn REBOOT=R

EXIT /B %ERRORLEVEL%

After this we created a package with this cmd file and added it to the tasksequence. after this you add an restart action to TS to finalize the setup of VmWare tools.

We used the 9.4.10 package for this.

let me know if this worked for you

Kind regards

Bas