
Prior to attempting to install any drivers, I ensured that the Wireless LAN Service and Windows Audio Service were installed/started. Enable Wifi Networking and Audio Services Unfortunately Windows Server builds are not known for their driver compatibility. Once Windows Server was installed and booted, the next step was installing device drivers, and enabling things like networking, sound, and graphics. Once the USB drive was ready, it was as simple as inserting it into the MacBook, holding the Option key at boot, selecting the USB drive, and proceeding through the Windows Server installation. The USB drive contains 2 partitions: the first containing the Windows Server Installation Media, and the second required for Mac EFI boot Make sure to set the File System to “NTFS” – this will ensure that a separate EFI boot partition is created, which is required for the USB drive to be bootable by the Mac. Once I had the ISO, I used the a free utility called Rufus to “burn” the ISO to my USB thumb-drive.

I ended up downloading a free evaluation copy directly from Microsoft 2. The first step was finding a Windows Server 2019 ISO that I could use to create the USB Installation Media. Booting the MacBook from a USB Windows Installer The steps I took to accomplish this are detailed below.ġ.

Installing Hardware Drivers that work on Windows Server – Apple published a robust suite of Bootcamp drivers supporting Windows 10, but these do not always apply for Windows Server.Booting the MacBook using the USB Windows Installation Media – It turns out that Intel-based Macs boot using EFI 1, and a separate EFI partition is required on USB drives for Macs to boot form them.

Since it is not supported by Apple Bootcamp, the two main challenges I faced when trying to install Windows Server on a Mac were: After becoming comfortable with Windows Server 2008 via free student access in college, I preferred to use Windows Server as my server OS whenever possible.
