Windows Server 2008 Hyper-v server stuck at ‘starting windows’

Posted by lee jones on Jun 21, 2015 in Other

I recently had an issue with a virtual machine I created in Hyper-V stuck at the ‘starting windows’ screen. It wouldn’t even boot the installer – it simply hung after the loading files prompt at the ‘starting windows’ prompt. It turns out the solution was really simple. When I created the virtual machine, I selected Gen2 as the version. This only works for Windows Server 2012 or later, so I went in to the virtual machine settings an disabled Secure boot. This got me past the secure boot failure I was seeing previously, but it appears 2008 and Gen2 virtual machines do not play ball at all. The solution was simply to delete the virtual machine, create a new Gen 1 machine and everything worked as you would...