WS 2012 reboot issues on detached machine

[ErikvanD]

I have been working with both my Macs with EFI install for quite a while now and I notice a difference between my 2012 MBP 13 i7 and my 2011 MacMini i5. Both machines run just Windows Server 2012 EFI. The Mini is my study server and runs Hyper-V with 4 SQL Server virtual machines. It runs 24/7. It sits under my desk without monitor, keyboard and mouse attached. I connect to it using RDP.

Every once in a while the Mini needs to reboot due to Windows updates. And that is where the problem lies. Ever since the Mini has been installed in EFI mode the machine does restart but it cannot be taken over through RDP. It seems not to go “far enough” in the boot process. How far it does get is hard to tell as there is no way of finding out.

The only way to get it going again is attach a physical keyboard and monitor to it and then reboot. After that it runs just fine until the next reboot.

The MacBookPro does not have this problem, most probably as it has a fixed display. And I am 100% sure the Mini did not have this issue while it was still running in BIOS mode.

It is very annoying as attaching a monitor and keyboard is a real pain as the Mini is quite tucked away. And not having toe possibility to reboot remotely sometimes is not very handy too.

Of course I could go back to BIOS install (so far the only benifit of EFI over BIOS I am aware of are very fast boot times, which is not of the most importance on a 24/7 server…) but I would just like to know what causes this.

Any ideas? Google did not help much so far…

EDIT
I have tried the unattended logon but that did not solve the issue

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