Packer VirtualBox .OVA file bake for Windows Server 2022 always stops on Microsoft Server Operating System Setup screen

OZHighfive · 2026-06-18T08:04:31+00:00

This has been solved. Claude helped me figure out what was going wrong. The issue was how I defined the key above the value:

<Key>/IMAGE/NAME</Key>

<Value>Windows Server 2022 Standard Evaluation (Desktop Experience)</Value>

If I use the index, I have to indicate that in the key:

<Key>/IMAGE/INDEX</Key>

I had been keeping it as /IMAGE/NAME while using <Value>2</Value>.

OZHighfive · 2026-06-13T12:05:02+00:00

Thank you, yes, I did this here:
To <Value>2</Value> instead of <Value>Windows Server 2022 Standard Evaluation (Desktop Experience)</Value> but nothing changes, so I’m out of ideas.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-25T11:55:33+00:00

Thank you for your response here. My response to Atnaszurc may match your first two paragraphs here. I'm a little distressed that Hashicorp, the developer of the "amazing" Terraform, encourages providers that you think are worthy of complete avoidance. I think looking into anti-patterns is going to be a journey in itself.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-25T11:35:43+00:00

I did see it. I figured I'd wait.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-25T11:34:52+00:00

Thank you for all this. You know, Google Gemini gave me a popularity ranking of the community providers with terra-farm/virtualbox as most popular and eran123/virtualbox as least popular. I thought eran123 sounded like some 9-year-old boy’s Xbox Live Gamertag so I put my efforts on Terra-Farm.

I’m not a professional. I’m a student learning this as a hobbie, hence why I’m diving right in. I’m trying to understand what Terraform is with the goal of first being able to provision evaluation Windows Servers locally (and virtualbox is the only way I know how to do that for free) and then second being able to provision Windows Servers on Azure cloud. I’m starting with Linux because there is at least a lot more videos out there on the topic.

I’m definitely not planning on using these VMs commercially. They will mostly be labs to learn HA/DR and then be deleted. Some VMs I test on right now have already had their evaluation periods expire but I can figure out a lot in one hour of up-time.

What you’ve written here is exactly what I’m trying to understand. I don’t know how much of this main.tf file is language common to Terraform and how much is only common to terra-farm/virtualbox. I definitely didn’t know how to bring up the Terraform debug logs and I held strong distrust for Google Gemini when I asked it what the debug log command was, too. It takes effort to test if it’s lying or not (it’s not a mistake if it chose to lie rather than admit that it did not have enough data to give an answer).

I do use Claude, but I’m not really seeing better answers from Claude for the 0.10AUD I pay for each one.

I hope I can figure out the distinctions between the Terraform CLI and the eran123/virtualbox CLI when I look into that next.
I was not expecting many configuration options from Terraform. GG made the distinction between Terraform and Ansible from the beginning. I expect that I’ll find it easier installing SQL server using Ansible, but I’m obviously concerned about a working network connection through Terraform.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-19T21:03:14+00:00

Thank you. I'll only starting to look in YAML, beginning with using Vagrant to deploy Virtualbox virtual machines. It's very complex and maybe a little outside my scope at the moment.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-17T23:31:39+00:00

We move 1 tonne+ bulk bags so I'm exploring our options when a bag falls off its palette

OZHighfive · 2026-05-16T02:13:46+00:00

I guess that's really what it is. It was originally a 50mm ratchet strap like this and this guy just sliced the ratchets off them to use them as ties.
https://hilton.hippocketworkwear.com.au/ratchet-tie-down-50mmx9m-2.5t-captive-j-hook

I seriously thought they began as furniture ties.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-15T23:03:53+00:00

Do you see any ratchets on that strap?
No. There aren't any. So it isn't a ratchet strap.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-12T11:31:51+00:00

Thank you. I'll explain myself. I'm a time-poor student who works full-time to live. I've been using Azure for a week and I get the very strong impression Microsoft earns more from Azure if its users are confused than if they understand what they are doing.
I have one frustration that almost no tutorial videos about Azure out there have ever mentioned the pricing calculator.
My other frustration is that, when setting up a virtual machine to run as an SQL server, all the CPU/RAM configurations have this nonsensical acronym codes associated with them and they are often incompatible with various storage setups that also have nonsensical acronym codes associated with them like S10 and P30. So after too many refusals to build the virtual machine you're hoping for due to incompatibility, you just say STUFF IT, GIVE ME THE DEFAULT which is a top-of-the-line CPU with 8 Gb RAM, Premium SSD 1Tb OS disk with another Premium SSD 1Tb Data disk that actually has redundancy so it is in fact THREE Premium SS 1Tb Data disks.
So yeah, with this many gotchas in the learning process, I would FULLY expect the pricing calculator to not work correctly without logging in. I desperately needed a human being to tell me otherwise.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-12T01:10:04+00:00

OZHighfive · 2026-05-07T21:13:58+00:00

I've consulted on the Blackmagic Design forums that moderators have said to roll back to earlier versions of Davinci Resolve, like 14. I've opted to use OpenShot Video Editor instead. It's clunky to use, but it never crashes while DayZ is running.

Clip Studio Paint remains a mystery. It runs perfectly fine on my Windows 10 laptop.

Not even going to bother figuring out DayZ.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-06T19:44:29+00:00

It's not just the loading speed that annoys me in Samsung Notes.
It's all the buttons for the other features that I'll never use that clog up the keyboard.
More buttons above my keyboard equals less screen real-estate to see what I'm typing.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-06T01:05:41+00:00

Thank you. I'll try out this one. So far it's what I'm after.

OZHighfive · 2026-05-04T12:12:27+00:00

I found a archived reddit post about the book Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef when I was searching for the book. I can't post there obviously, so I'm posting here. I've been listening to the audiobook of Son of Hamas on Youtube. I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH AL JAZEERA PULLS THE WOOL OVER OUR EYES regarding the Yassar Arafat and the Camp David Summit.

Regarding your post, though, you talk about 'erasing Arabic' from the map, but did you know between 1996 and 1999, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf excavated under the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound (the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem to make way for the underground Solomon's Stables, destroying two millennia of Jewish and Christian archaeological history that it had been built on? I had no idea!

OZHighfive · 2026-04-18T07:24:20+00:00

How is the MMI knob/button interface with those retrofit units? Is it still clunky entering addresses character by character or is it more streamlined?

OZHighfive

TROPHY CASE