Saturday, November 30, 2013

Install Windows Server 2012 R2 on MacBook Pro Retina 15 (late 2013) using Bootcamp

It was a chaotic experience, as officially Bootcamp never support Windows Servers. However, as I have free Windows Servers 2012 from Dreamspark, and I would like to have OneNote installed on my MacBook Pro, so I tried... There were tons of error and after 10 hours I got it up and running except the bluetooth still won't work. Here are my steps (it may or may not work again):


1. In Bootcamp, create the USB disc with Windows Servers 2008 R2 iso first. (Cause there was error when I directly installed 2012)

2. Download DAEMON Tools Lite 4. You will need this later.

3. Install Windows Servers 2008 using Bootcamp. Remember to REMOVE any other USB hard disk, this was one of the problems I encountered during my installation and I have to redo the whole thing again.

4. Install DAEMON Tools Lite 4 on Windows.
  • If you skipped step 2 -- 
    • the wifi would NOT work at this stage as the wifi service is disabled, I did not attempt to solve this as that needs to be solved again after installing 2012. So it may be easier to download DAEMON using another PC. 
    • If you do not have another PC connected to the Internet, you may try to enable Wireless LAN service and re-run Bootcamp installation files, theoretically this would get WiFi working but I am not sure. 
5. Mount Windows Servers 2012 R2 iso using Daemon. Install.

6. Install Windows Servers 2012 as a fresh copy (do NOT upgrade, it won't work).

7. After installation, run the Bootcamp installation files. (If you don't mind completing set up with the horrible screen resolution, you can actually skip this step and go ahead to step 8, I believe)

8. Everything should work except wifi (and bluetooth, but I don't use bluetooth so I did not attempt to solve this issue, if you can get bluetooth working, please let me know how to do it! :D ).

9. Enable Wireless LAN service in your server.

10. Re-run Bootcamp installation files.

11. Restart ... and enjoy! Wifi should work now :)

I have googled for a long time and seems many people says can't get 2012 installed using Bootcamp, of they can get that install but Wifi doesn't work, hope this instruction would help. :D