Windows Server 2012 R2 setup may fail on a virtual machine that is configured to use the minimum required memory

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• You create a virtual machine that is configured to use the minimum RAM requirement (512 megabytes [MB]).

• You start the virtual machine from an ISO image file.

• You try to set up Windows Server 2012 R2 on the virtual machine.

In this scenario, the setup fails, and you receive the following error message:

Cause

This issue occurs because of insufficient memory during setup.

Workaround

To work around this issue, use one of the following methods:

• Create a page file. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. When the virtual machine starts, press Shift + F10 to open the Command Prompt window.

  2. Run Diskpart.exe to create and format the partition (for example, C:) on which you want to install Windows Server 2012 R2.

  3. Run the following command to create a page file that has default size of 64 MB:
     
     

     wpeutil createpagefile /path=C:\pf.sys

  4. Exit the Command Prompt window, and then continue the setup.

• Increase the allocated memory of the virtual machine before setup.

• Create and set up another virtual machine that is configured to use more memory, and then attach the virtual hard disk.