Windows Server Essential Experiance Role will NOT install on 2012 R2

Question

We have a Windows Server 2012 R2 running as a VM on VMWare.
It is a member server on a domain with a single domain
We have the server in a OU that blocks all policy inheritance from the domain and have created a policy that allow "log on as a service" for SERVICE, NETWORK and NETWORK SERVICE.

Have tried installing using both server manager Role and features install and power shell.

The installation (first step) appears to complete both in GUI and Powershell

The system then has two warning...

1. system need reboot
2. Need to configure essentials....

We then reboot the server...

During reboot you can see that in it completeing feature install ... but at about 6% the server shits down and reboots...

When server starts up again...

The feature has not been installed....

We can not see any error in the logs or event viewer...

it just appears as though we didnt event start the installation...

Have tried this several times and have also tried to reboot server several times in case there are other pending install... but we just can get the role to install.

Any ideas would be welcomed.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,

Are your windows server 2012 R2 standard or datacenter?

Before rebooting the server, have you firstly configured Windows Server Essentials?

Deploying the Windows Server Essentials Experience role in Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter

Apart from event logs, please go to C:\Windows\Logs\CBS to view the cbs.log and find if there are errors during the windows server role setup time.

Thanks,

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