Wednesday, April 13, 2011

T420s - Windows Server 2008 R2 Installation

I have been using Win2K8 for a couple of years now on my primary notebooks (T61p, T410s and now T420s).
The Lenovo System Update program does not work for Win2K8R2. I also tried playing around with the Mapping Interfaces xml file as suggested on Lenovo Forums but no luck.

Here are the steps I followed to upgrade my T420s to Win2K8R2. There are 3 parts: (a) Preparation, (b) OS and driver installation and (c) Roles/Features and other applications.

Preparation

Starting with the stock notebook, make the recovery disks, conduct any benchmarking as required and then upgrade all hardware.

OS/Driver Installation

This is fairly straightforward.

Install the OS
Upon first log on, change date/time, set computer name and create a new user account with admin privileges

Install in order as shown in the image below:



I have added notes above for some errors I got and also some additional instructions.
I didnt order Bluetooth. But I suspect that as it the previous T410s, bluetooth is not support (in a reliable manner) on Windows Server 2008 R2.
Roles/Features/Other Items

This process is well documented on other sites e.g., http://www.win2008workstation.com/

 


No comments:

Post a Comment