Dell OMSA Installation on Windows Server Core

Dell has been very popular over the last few years regarding servers and now storages (after EMC take over) so I'm sure that many of you will have to install Dell OpenManage System Administrator (OMSA) on your systems.

I recently had to install it on a Core installation of Windows Server 2012 R2. Although I'll describe the process, there's a small detail that you'll have to remember if you do not want to waste an hour like me.

So, first things first, you have to check if the WOW feature is installed on the server. You can use powershell to do this using the Get-WindowsFeature -Name *wow* command. If it is not installed you can install it using Powershell Add-WindowsFeature or the following command:

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:ServerCore-WOW64

After downloading the appropriate OMSA installation file for your server version to your server (I usually create a folder named "Dell" in C:), you have to run the executable to extract the files.

After that, you have to install the SysMgmt.msi

I, being a Powershell fanatic, started the setup using Powershell in order to check for the WOW feature so I executed the msiexec /I command to install the SysMgmt.msi file within powershell. This however will fail. You have to run msiexec from the Command Prompt.

When the installation is finished you may disable the WOW feature. It is also a good idea to reboot the server so make the necessary downtime arrangements and move all the services off from the server.

The installation process is also documented on this Dell article.

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