Forum Discussion
Windows Server 2022 - devices not booting when Secure Boot enabled (KB5022842)
The point is that Microsoft broke it with the last Patch Tuesday update - it worked fine up until that point. It's quite normal to run server OSs on older hardware on which it's technically not supported, and it rarely gives any issues at all. And indeed the same applied with client versions up until W11.
And just to note - the servers I have tested it on only don't support it in the sense that Dell don't support running Server 2022 on them - they do meet the Microsoft requirements for Server 2022 as set out here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/hardware-requirements.
And no it's not normal to run OS on unsupported hardware in a production environment. It doesn't matter if there are not many issues - one is enough. And if you cannot rely on OEM support to fix it, you're toasted.
It's called risk management. Gambling is not a way to manage a production environment.
Maybe Dell will be kind enough to update those drivers/firmware for free. If not, you can replace Windows Server 2022 by an older, supported OS on this hardware, or you can upgrade your hardware, one supported by Dell for WS 2022.
Alban1998 It is absolutely normal to run more recent OSes on older hardware in a combination that is technically not supported by the hardware vendor. The only parties arguing against this are those who financially benefit from customers constantly having to upgrade their hardware. Many companies cannot afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars on brand new hardware because a consultant or vendor tells them that its too risky not to. Most companies can't afford to drink that Kool-Aid. There are effective ways to mitigate the risk associated with unsupported hardware/software combinations (failover clusters come to mind), but these mitigations don't enrich Microsoft and its hardware partners the same way trying to force people to constantly upgrade their hardware does.
"otherwise, Microsoft would have provided a fix". This implies Microsoft actually tests their updates or cares about their customers. They care about making money and will fix issues that cost them money. This is a pretty recent issue, so it is yet to be determined if Microsoft will fix it or not. I'm still hopeful they will, but I don't think it will be out of the kindness of their heart.
We experienced this issue on a Dell PowerEdge R730XD and a R430. In the case of the R730XD, this was a clean install of Windows Server 2022. After several clean installs, we were able to narrow down the issue to this particular update. We went so far as to back up the Secure Boot database, perform the update that breaks secure boot, and restore the database to what it was before that and Secure Boot still didn't work. The only thing that changed was Microsoft's update. They can blame whoever they want for this issue, but it happened as a result of their update.
Thankfully, virtualization based security (including HVCI and Credential Guard) work just fine without Secure Boot. This is despite Microsoft's claim that these feature require Secure Boot to function.- We are getting off topic here, this could be a topic on its own.
You missed the "production environment" thing in my reply, this is a critical item when evaluating risk.
Well if your customers are fine with losing money because of unsupported stuff, I guess that's OK. Defeats the purpose of minimizing costs in the first place tough. Which itself contradicts buying brand new WS2022 licenses and CAL, when you can continue using WS2019, and using physical hardware for servers when you can use VM instead, and so on.
Or if you are really unable to cope with regular on-premise hardware upgrade, go Azure/AWS/Google.
And the next post kinda prove my point :
"they have reproduced the issue, and confirmed that servers later than 13G are not affected. Because Server 2022 isn't officially supported on 13G servers, they are not currently committing to doing anything about it". In some companies, telling this to your boss/customer triggers a Resume-Generating Event (RGE).
As for disabling Secure Boot to bypass your issue, and claiming VBS/CG are fine without it...yeah, good luck with that.Alban1998 I do agree this is getting a little off topic. I also apologize if anything I say comes off as personally disrespectful to you. My intention is not to criticize you in a way that is unfair or uninvited.
"Well if your customers are fine with losing money because of unsupported stuff, I guess that's OK." My "customer" is the company I work for, which experienced zero downtime as a result of this issue. No downtime means no money lost. If someone is losing money over unsupported hardware, that is a failure of the people and processes that set it up, not the hardware/software combination itself.
Buying used servers costs about a tenth of what buying new servers costs, who says anyone is losing money? You know who would love for people to believe this is true? Microsoft and its hardware partners. You know who it doesn't benefit? The companies whose IT staff are naïve enough to believe this and end up paying for new servers they should have never bought in the first place. Needlessly wasting your company's money to replace servers because Microsoft says you should, now that sounds like a "resume generating event"
"Defeats the purpose of minimizing costs in the first place tough. Which itself contradicts buying brand new WS2022 licenses and CAL, when you can continue using WS2019, and using physical hardware for servers when you can use VM instead, and so on." We have SA on all of our Microsoft licensing so we don't pay for upgrades. No additional costs related to CALs here. All of these servers are HyperV hosts. It's unclear to me why you thought otherwise. Needlessly wasting your company's money to buy license upgrades that should have been covered under SA, now that sounds like a "resume generating event".
"And the next post kinda prove [sic] my point": The only thing this proves is that Dell is hearing from their customers and is discussing if or how they will resolve the issue. This doesn't imply its Dell's issue to solve. Not understanding the typical behavior of (what is likely) one of your largest vendors and making bad assumptions as a result of that naïveté, now that sounds like a "resume generating event".
"Or if you are really unable to cope with regular on-premise hardware upgrade, go Azure/AWS/Google." Hosting the same workloads we host on-premise today in Azure would be far more expensive than hosting them the way we do. It would also be more expensive than buying new hardware. The only time it might make financial sense to host in Azure is if you have a highly variable workload that benefits from the scalability of Azure. Many companies are moving from Azure/AWS/Google back in to their own data centers specifically because the promised cost savings simply don't exist. Do you think a company like Microsoft would be pushing so hard to get people in to Azure if it wasn't financially beneficial to them? Needlessly wasting your company's money putting workloads in expensive public clouds, now that sounds like a "resume generating event".
"As for disabling Secure Boot to bypass your issue, and claiming VBS/CG are fine without it...yeah, good luck with that." This is working without issue on every server this has effected. Luck is not needed here.
The servers I manage have had nearly zero unscheduled downtime over the past decade. Because of the way we manage hardware lifecycles ("unsupported stuff"), I have saved my company tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars over that time period.
I wasn't aware that "Resume Generating Event" was an acronym before you brought it up in your post. You know why that might be? Because its not something I've ever had to worry about.
There's an important lesson here that you seem to not understand: Microsoft, Dell, and IT consultants are for profit entities that operate in their own financial best interest. Everything they do (including the guidance they provide) is in service of that goal.
Be careful not to let your arrogance prevent you from understanding the implications of this lesson. That could end up being a "Resume Generating Event" for you.
- Thanks for that!
Latest I've had from Dell is that it was passed up to the chain, has been looked and and they have reproduced the issue, and confirmed that servers later than 13G are not affected. Because Server 2022 isn't officially supported on 13G servers, they are not currently committing to doing anything about it, but that may change depending how many people are affected (could be next Patch Tuesday before a lot of the machines are rebooted again, and the problem shows itself). It was sugggested that it was very much dependent on how much they get contacted, and I was advised to raise it with our account manager, which I will be doing as I have a call with them anyway tomorrow. If you've got affected devices under warranty and have not yet put in a support case, sounds like it's definitely worth doing to make them aware that multiple people have the issue.
Dell are also hopeful that Microsoft will issue a patch, but didn't have any information on whether this was likely when I spoke to them.
As regards your point about stretching hardware lifecycles - yes, quite! I've just retired an R710 which was nearly 12 years old and was still working OK (running Hyper-V Server 2016 as a host for some undemanding test machines).DavidYorkshire Its good to know that Dell is aware of this issue and at least discussing possibly resolving it. I'll reach out to our Dell rep and make them aware of how important this is to us.
"I've just retired an R710 which was nearly 12 years old and was still working OK (running Hyper-V Server 2016 as a host for some undemanding test machines)" What an interesting coincidence! In November, we retired our fleet of R710s also running Hyper-V 2016 for about 10 years and replaced them with R730s. The servers were working great even when we replaced them. We ended up replacing them because of the licensing benefits of running our cluster in a more dense configuration. We also continue to run a Dell PowerVault MD3200 in production whose storage controllers were manufactured in 2002. The quality of enterprise class hardware really is astonishing.
- The servers concerned are used in secondary roles - in one case for testing - so they need to be on the same version as the production systems.
As to whether there's something wrong with the specific drivers / firmware - so far as I'm aware none of the parties involved have released any details of what the cause is. Do you have inside information or are you just speculating? Because without details it's not possible to say what the cause was, and the fact that VMWare have issued a patch only tells us that they (quite sensibly) wanted to get it resolved as quickly as possible - which may be fixing an issue in their product, or may simply be a workaround to whatever Microsoft has done - without further information it's impossible to tell. The fact that VMware, Dell, Lenovo and HPE all seem to be affected is notable, though.- I do not have any insider information. You'll see what Dell support team can tell you about this issue.
