WOW, much basic, Windows 10 installation is straightforward most of the time, but not intuitive on Servers. For serversstarters, first check whether the motherboard can support Windows 10 first. Brute forcing an uncertified Operating System installation can lead to incompatability issues. For Windows, most notably, the infamous BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).Trying to install Win 10 Pro to
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Starting with BIOS Optimized defaults
I am installing Windows 10 Pro on an M.2 drive. System/MB supports the OS
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BIOS Optimized defaults
. For starters, I used the 'Restore Optimized Defaults' in BIOS, and will make changes after finishing the Windows 10 installation.
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Note: Using 'Restore Optimized Defaults' post-Win10 installation
Windows would not boot without Splash screen/BIOS intervention.
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Switching the Windows Boot Manager as Boot Option #1 resolved the boot issue. |
Step 1 - Create Windows 10 Bootable USB Installer tool
On a separate computer, plug in a blank USB drive, or one that you are willing to part ways with the data for, and visit the link below- AND THEN click 'Download Now' under 'Create Windows 10 installation media'
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Step 2 - Boot Windows 10 Installer via UEFI
Non-UEFI USB Boot Media installation - selecting M.2 drive to install Win10 Pro
Difference between UEFI and non-UEFI Boot Media installation selection BIOS is whether the USB drive is prefixed with 'UEFI'.
Example:
Stops here.
Step 3 - Install Windows 10
UEFI USB Boot Media installation - selecting M.2 drive to install Win10 Pro
WorksUnlike the non-UEFI USB option, it will now let you choose your desired Windows 10 OS from a list after selecting the drive. For this article, we are installing Windows 10 Pro.
After it finishes installation, it warns that it is automatically rebooting. Windows Boot Manager and the M.2/NVMe drive shows up at the top of Boot priority.
On default settings, it will not list the M.2/NVMe drive as a bootable disk, but it will instead be seen in identified within the Win10 Pro installer. After Windows 10 Pro finishes installing, it will show up as 'Windows Boot Manager' in BIOS with the full part number of the M.2/NVMe drive.
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Windows 10 and drivers for servers
Missing Drivers
On a fresh Windows 10 install from ISO (not triggered from a Win7 upgrade or restored with whatever Boot Media comes with your original system), there are no drivers installed. Since there are no drivers installed, that means the network ports will not work natively, and that you cannot have Windows 10 search online and auto-update to fill in the drivers needed for installed hardware.
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Coming from default 'Optomized' BIOS settings, Windows will display the Onboard VGA as a display option. I can also use both the onboard VGA and offboard PCI-e display device (Graphics Card) simultaneously. To avoid integrated CPU graphics from being used for display or calculation, you will need to set the system to use Offboard video display in BIOS.
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Onboard/Offboard channels for servers
Whole article about it here: System boot times, and Onboard and Offboard video display channels
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Graphics Card interactions with Onboard/Offboard display channels
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BIOS Onboard - Single display - Onboard VGA
BIOS Onboard - Dual display - Onboard VGA and Graphics Card
GPU Burn-in with Onboard/Offboard video display channels
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Benefit of Linux, right after fresh installation, is that the onboard network ports are highly likely of already being detected, and are already work if I enabled them through Linux OS installer, or even in the settings without updating the OS at all. I could also query the installed hardware without drivers.
- Taking this into account, that is giving another point of failure for each hardware
- Exxact doesn't make Windows, nor Linux. Exxact assembles HPC's and servers using various hardware components, and then apply Operating System installations towards HPC/servers
- Why Linux is used in >90% of supercomputer
- "Supercomputers seek to maximize performance. Usually supercomputers are assigned with jobs that require computation at a very high speed. When compared to Windows, Windows has number of extraneous processes that are unnecessary and only degrade the supercomputer performance However as Windows is proprietary the code cannot be altered to cut off unnecessary processes. With Linux it is certainly possible which gives a performance boost to computers."