The hotfixes listed below are available from Microsoft, Inc. They are needed later in this procedure. The hotfixes have passwords which will be contained in emails from Microsoft. The passwords are needed to extract the files from the zip archives. Put zipped software on a USB stick or burn them into a data CD. The hotfixes required are, as follows:

Make sure the system disk drives are setup for Windows. Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter, when booted from EFI, should allow you to manage the disks without any external help. Each disk must have a proper GPT label. If the disks have msdos labels, seee Chapter 2, “Disk Preparation for Windows”.

If you run into problems, you may have to wipe out the master boot record (MBR), create a new msdos disk label, create a 100 MB system partition and a second boot/system partition (greater than or equal to 46 GB). Then format those targeted to Windows as new technology file system (NTFS). For more information, see “Disk Setup with Linux” in Chapter 2.

Attach a USB keyboard, USB mouse, and VGA monitor to the BaseIO blade (see Figure 1-1 and Figure 1-2).

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Note: You can also use the display/keyboard and media redirection feature of the BaseIO BMC firmware (BMC firmware versions 1.2.2 or later). See “Enabling a Remote Console” in the SGI Altix UV System Management Node Administrator's Guide available at http://docs.sgi.com.

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Figure 1-1. Altix UV 1000 Individual Rack Unit (IRU)

Figure 1-2. Altix UV 1000 BaseIO Riser Enabled Blade Front Panel Example

Figure 1-3. Altix UV 100 Individual Rack Unit (IRU)

Attach USB DVD-ROM drive if needed (see Figure 1-2 ), and insert Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter DVD. For the location of the Altix UV 100 DVD drive, see Figure 1-3.

Use the ssh command to connect to the Chassis Management Controller (CMC), similar to the following example:

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Note: This assumes the system CMC SMN port is connected and an address is assigned. For more information, see Chapter 2 in the SGI Altix UV CMC Controller Software User's Guide.

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% ssh root@hostname-cmc

SGI Chassis Manager Controller, Firmware Rev. 1.3.11

system-cmc CMC:r001i01c>

Use the hwcfg command on the console to disable NUMAlink, as follows:

system-cmc CMC:r001i01c>hwcfg nl5_enable=no

From the CMC, perform a power reset, as follows:

system-cmc CMC:r001i01c>power reset

When prompted on the console, hit the space bar for the Boot Menu, as shown in Figure 1-4.

Figure 1-4. Console Prompt for Boot Menu Screen

From the boot manager screen, select Device Manager, as shown in Figure 1-5.

Figure 1-5. Device Manager Screen

Navigate the Device Manager, as follows:

From the Device Manager screen, as shown in Figure 1-6, select Advanced.

Figure 1-6. Device Manager Advanced Option Screen

From the Advanced screen, select SGI Custom Configuration, as shown in Figure 1-7.

Figure 1-7. SGI Custom Configuration Option Example

From the Advanced screen, as shown in Figure 1-8, perform the following:

Figure 1-8. Advanced Screen APIC Mode Option

You can either boot to the EFI shell and run \efi\boot\bootx64 or enter the boot menus and use the Boot Manager to select the boot loader. Be sure to navigate into the DVD's file hierarchy to find the Windows boot loader. Do not just boot from the DVD at the top level or you will get a legacy boot and Windows will not be able to use X2APIC mode or access more than eight Nehalem-EX sockets (or four Westmere-EX sockets.) Note that the DVD may not be at fs0, depending on what other bootable partitions are available on other drives.

Once the install completes and Windows has booted (using a VGA monitor and attached keyboard and mouse on the Altix UV system), copy the downloaded hotfixes onto the system. Unzip each one to the desktop.

Install the first hotfix, 980598, by clicking on it and going through the dialog steps.

Reboot the system when prompted. The hotfix install completes after reboot. If the system appears to hang on reboot, after at least two minutes, reset the machine as follows:

system-cmc CMC:r001i01c>power reset

Install the first x2apic hotix - 2303458. Complete the dialogs and reboot when prompted. The hotfix install completes after reboot. Login as the administrator. Start a cmd shell and enter the following command:

bcdedit x2apicpolicy enable

Reboot the system. When prompted on the console, perform the following:

Install the second x2apic hotfix - 2398906. Complete the dialog steps and reboot when prompted. The hotfix install completes after reboot. Shutdown windows to prepare to enable the rest of the system.

Use the hwcfg command on the console to enable NUMAlink, as follows:

system-cmc CMC:r001i01c>hwcfg nl5_enable=yes

From the CMC perform a power reset, as follows:

system-cmc CMC:r001i01c>power reset

Boot into Windows. This should take about 10 minutes on a 128 processor, one TB memory Altix UV 100 system. A 256 core, 2TB Alitx UV 1000 system takes about 28 minutes to boot Windows. The disk activity LED on the Base I/O, just to the right of the SATA connector should be flashing. This will be the only indication of activity for most of the wait time.

The SAC> command will show up on the serial console towards the end of the 10 minutes. It will take a few more minutes before the login screen appears on the VGA monitor. Windows will now take another 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the speed of the root filesystem, to discover new hardware and write their configuration to disk. It will prompt for reboot when complete. Reboot once more to complete the install.