Install VMware EXSi in Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V

Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V can’t run third party nested virtualization so it is just for fun and practice experience.

Windows 10
Windows Server 2016 Version 1607 Build 14393.0
VMware EXSi V6

Step 1 Create Windows Server 2016 USB
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You can download Evaluation Server 2016 from Microsoft website.
You can use Rufus to create your 2016 USB drive. or if you want you could try to use cmd manually create it.

1. Double-click the ISO file to mount it
2. Open CMD (as admin)and run commands
diskpart
list disk
select disk 1 –> (USB drive)
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs quick label=”2016Server”
exit
3. under CMD change to ISO mount point ex: cd F:
4. then –> cd boot
bootsect /nt60 d: –> d: is your USB drive
5. xcopy F:\*.* D:\ /E /H /F –> copy windows files onto USB drive

after these steps you now have Windows Server 2016 USB Drive

Step 2 Install Windows 2016
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Installed 2016 on school computer and the Intel board we have doesn’t have graphic driver for server… 🙁
I also have “Missing media driver” problem…. tried to change BIOS settings and use different ISO…etc can’t work
It could be bad ISO or USB… or USB 2.0 3.0 problem my USB is 3.0 and we don’t have 3.0 port on our working computer…
so I can’t try to use 3.0 port… however I found a solution online…. so basically just unplug the usb and plug it back on DIFFERENT usb port.
and try to run “Install Now” again …… it works !! lol

Step 3 Prepare Nested VM and Inject network driver onto EXSi ISO
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VMWare PowerShell CLI — “The VMware PowerCLI User’s Guide provides information about installing and using the VMware PowerCLI cmdlets (pronounced “commandlets”) for managing, monitoring, automating, and handling lifecycle operations for VMware® vSphere, VMware Site Recovery Manager, vSphere Automation SDK, vCloud Director, vCloud Air, vSphere Update Manager, vRealize Operations Manager, and VMware Horizon components.”

Enable-NestedVM.ps1 – Powershell script to enable Nested Virtualization in for Hyper-V
ESXi-Customizer-PS.ps1 –Inject network driver needed for Hyper-V into EXSi ISO

1. install VMWare PowerShell CLI and restart computer
2. Powershell runs as admin and run “.\ESXi-Customizer-PS-v2.4.ps1 -v60 -vft -load net-tulip”
It will download EXSi V6 ISO and inject network driver into it

when i run this script i got “A provider is not available for the following required component service: CisCoreService” error message
but after i restart computer it works fine XD

3. Create VM in Hyper-v assign two virtual CPU to it and use legacy network card
4. run “.\Enable-NestedVm.ps1 -vmName ‘EXSi-Test 1′” to enable Nested VM function

Step 3 Install EXSi V6
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When first boot for installation you have to TAB to interrupt the boot process then add “ignoreHeadless=TRUE” to boot option
after you reboot the machine you also have to TAB and add “mboot.c32 -c boot.cfg ignoreHeadless=TRUE” to boot option

After done the installation and setup network settings I am able to connect to EXSi website to download vSphere client
however after we connect to the EXSi server and create VM.. when we try to start the VM it pop up an error message says
“vmware not compatible with hyper v” XDXD well it is still a fun experience

Ref: https://dscottraynsford.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/install-a-vmware-esxi-6-0-hypervisor-in-a-hyper-v-vm/