Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2011: Installation Halted after Inital Install (SBSSetup.exe) does not Auto Load

This is an old one I had on my hard disk, you are tring to install Windows Small Business Server 2011 into a vanilla VM running on VMware vSphere. You boot the VM from the SBS 2011 media and after the inital Windows installation the VM goes into a reboot cycle and only displays a blank screen. Normal behaviour for an SBS installation would be for the SBS Setup wizard to launch after the inital installation.

 

The first thing to do is push ALT and F10 on the keyboard to get Command Prompt up.

Change directory to C:\Windows and the launch explorer to get the GUI up.

Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin and launch the SBSSetup.exe.

 

This will then bring up the SBS Installation Wizard, I have found that to complete an installation of SBS when the wizard does not load on the first instance requires you to do this after every reboot. From memory SBS reboots about 5 times during the installation.