Onboard intel network adapters revisited with Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2

I'm still working on that clone system with the Asus P8Z77-V Premium motherboard that has the two integrated intel adapters, the 82579V & the 82583V. When I got to Server 2008 R2 I got the same issue. It would refuse to install any intel driver, from the Intel 18.8 Network CD.

I blew a gasket and decided that there has to be a workaround. So I remembered that back in the day of the first plug & pray OS' that we used more the "Have disk" method of driver install. It's painful, but sometimes it works.

So from Server 2008 R2, I clicked on the unknown network device, and got to the menu that says "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" . Then you have to choose network adapter, and then 'have disk". This will point to your system32 folder. I pointed it to the Intel 18.8 CD.  I knew the name of the adapters so I looked for them. I found the 82579LM.  Installed the driver for that. And lo  and behold, I suddenly had access to the local network.

So today I went to revisit Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2. I followed the same procedure and installed that driver on both network adapters. And it worked!!!

Of course windows did warn me that this driver was not written for my OS or hardware and did I want to put this driver on, and I did.  I've used this method before to catastrophic results where the system either just plainly restarts or blue screens and then your OS is hosed.  This was not the case today.

Server 2012 R2 with both network cards using the 82579LM drivers

This solution may not be a good fit for someone using a Server OS as a Server with lots of systems accessing it, but this is good enough for a test machine, where we want to have a Server OS installed to see if our drivers work in that system. We can install the software we need and the drivers we need. We're not looking for speed or perfect network solutions.

This entry is a follow-up of this blog post

Note despite the fact I wrote this on the first of April this is not a joke. This actually did work. [Hence the photo]

Oh UEFI systems, how I do love you. {end sarcasm}

So I've been arguing with a few UEFI systems that came with Windows 8 pre-loaded, and with secure boot.

For instance so far I've been setting up new machines with Windows 7 64 bits, Server 2008 R2, Windows 8 64 bits and Server 2012 on one drive and configuring the system to Boot UEFI for this drive, and the drive is partitioned GPT.  On the Dell 7010, that came with Windows 8 , was never able to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode. It just hangs before even installing. Even with secure boot disabled.

So I figured I'd use the Windows 8 drive it came with and add Server 2012. So I boot the DVD and before I even get to a menu where I can start installing I get the following error "The product key entered does not match any of the Window images available for installation. Please enter another key". I tried again, got the same message. That left me perplexed and discouraged. 

So I moved on from that Dell 7010 and started setting up the Lenovo M92p. I manage to install W7-64, S2008 R2, W8-64 [enterprise] and once I get to Server 2012, I get the same error about the product key.  This is when I went to do research. Turns out that the key it's talking about is embedded somewhere in the UEFI BIOS.   I guess no one ever considered that you might want to install an OS different then the one the system came with.  In the end the solution was simple. Instead of using a 'retail' version of Server 2012, if I used the Volume License version I did not run into this issue. 

I would have ran into the issue with Windows 8 if I had used the Pro version. But because I used Enterprise, I got around the built in serial number.

If you do not have access to Enterprise and Volume License versions, there is a way to by-pass this problem, by adding a .PID file to the install media, this article explains it.