Add Roles & Features to an offline vhdx with HYPER-V

After 2 weeks lot of work i finish a migration of our environment from one Site to another. I face lot of difficulties  but we didn't have any downtime and i am happy for this.

Day after day with lot of troubleshooting and monitoring i learn new things in different areas simple or not that will be useful in the feature.

One of them is how can install Roles and Features in Virtual Machine that it's offline and i would like to share it with you because i believe can help lot of IT Pro.

So let's start to explain step by step how can do it.

Scenario

Let's say that you have a Windows Server and one day can't apply new Windows Updates ,Roles and Features or Integration Services because get an error We couldn't complete updates. Undoing changes. Don't Turn off your computer .

Unfortunately the specific Virtual Machine is a Domain Controller. You want to try before proceed with other solution like Remove manual from Active Directory or perform a nonauthoritative restore.

The solution is to install a new Feature to resolve the issue but with the traditional way it's not possible because can't Apply the Updates while restart.

Believe me i face the same scenario and i resolve it with the following solution.

• Shutdown the Virtual Machine that has problem.
• Login in HYPER-V Host that include the specific Virtual Machine.
• Open Server Manager.
• Click from the right side Manage and select Add Roles and Features

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• In the first screen Click Next.

• Select Role-based or featured based installation. Click Next.

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• Check the Select virtual hard disk.
• Go in the bottom click Browse and select the vhdx or vhd file from the Virtual Machine that you want to add Role or Feature.
• Click Next

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• In my scenario i will add the feature Bitlocker Drive encryption that required to resolve my issue. But you can add any Role or Feature base on your requests.
• So click Next.

• Check the Bitlocker Drive encryption and click Add Features.

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• Click Next

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• Click Install and wait to finish

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That's it.

After finish the installation open the Virtual Machine and verify that the Role or Feature installed.

You can use the same way to Remove Role or Feature from an Offline Virtual Machine.

It's very easy and you can help in a very difficult situation.

Let's ask you now.  Do you have face any similar scenario? How do you resolve it? Write down in our commented system and share it with other IT Pro.