Hyper-V on NUC7i5BNK

I wanted to use my NUC7i5BNK as a Hyper-V server. I’ll note the basic steps here as I encountered a few issues during installation and configuration.

Note: by following these steps your NUC will be completely reset. All data will be lost! It’s also not a good idea to use this as a production server! :)

Requirements

You’ll need the following things:

• Hardware
  • USB flash drive
  • Intel NUC7i5BNK
• Software
  • Rufus
  • 7-Zip
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016
  • Latest Intel Gigabit Ethernet Network Connection Driver for Windows 10
  • Latest BIOS Update (the .bio file)

Preparing the installer

1. Open Rufus
2. Select your USB flash drive and the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016 ISO
3. Make sure to select “GPT partition scheme for UEFI”
4. Click “Start”

Preparing the network driver

1. Right click on the Intel Gigabit Ethernet Network Connection driver installer
2. In the 7-Zip submenu, choose “Extract to LAN_WIN10_64_x.y.z"
3. Navigate to LAN_WIN10_64_x.y.z\PRO1000\Winx64\NDIS65
4. Edit e1d65x64.inf
   1. Copy all the lines under [Intel.NTamd64.10.0.1] until [Intel.NTamd64.10.0]
   2. Paste these lines under [Intel.NTamd64.10.0]
5. Copy the LAN_WIN10_64_x.y.z directory to the USB drive

Note: This is needed because the driver doesn’t officialy support Windows Server 2016. By copying all the device IDs in the list for Windows 10 to the list for Windows Server 2016 they will work.

Preparing the BIOS update

1. Copy the BNxxxx.bio file to the USB drive

Updating the BIOS

This step is not really necessary, but I’ll do it anyway.

1. Boot the NUC with the USB drive inserted
2. Press F7 and select the BNxxxx.bio file
3. When flashing is done, press F2 to enter setup
4. Press F9 to reset default settings, then press F10 to save and exit

Installing Hyper-V

1. Boot the NUC with the USB drive inserted
2. Press F10 and select “UEFI: USB Drive…”
3. When the installer started, press SHIFT + F10
   1. In the command prompt, execute diskpart
   2. Write list disk to list all available disks
   3. Write select disk x to select the disk to clean (usually 0)
4. Install and configure Windows as you would normally

Installing driver

1. Insert the USB drive
2. Execute the following commands in the command prompt:

   bcdedit /set LOADOPTIONS DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
   bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING ON
   bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON
   shutdown /r /t 0
   

3. In the command prompt, navigate to [USB drive]\LAN_WIN10_64.x.y.z\PRO1000\Winx64\NDIS65
4. Execute pnputil -i -a e1d65x64.inf to install the driver
   • You’ll probably get a security warning because we altered the file, make sure to accept this
5. Execute the following commands in the command prompt:

   bcdedit /set LOADOPTIONS ENABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
   bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING OFF
   bcdedit /set nointegritychecks OFF
   shutdown /r /t 0
   

Configuring remote management

Some of these steps are not needed if the NUC and your client machine are in the same domain.

1. It’s a good idea to enable all remote mangement options in the menu so you can use your NUC headless
2. Add a local administrator with the same name and password as your client’s Windows account (option 4)
3. Follow these steps
   • I only had to execute these commands on the client:

     Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value "fqdn-of-hyper-v-host"
     Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role client -DelegateComputer "fqdn-of-hyper-v-host"
     

Managing the server remotely

1. Install the “Hyper-V Management Tools” (using “Turn Windows features on or off”)
2. Open “Hyper-V Manager”
3. Right click on “Hyper-V Manager” and choose “Connect to Server…”
4. Enter the name of the Hyper-V server

Sources

• How to Manually Install Intel Network Adapter Drivers
• Network driver with Windows Server 2016 TP5
• Installing Drivers on Windows Server Core
• Remotely manage Hyper-V hosts