Ok, I have done about a dozen installs so far, both clean and upgrades, using the WZT Server 2012R2 RTM for standard and datacenter. Finally got around to upgrading my primary datacenter which runs all my Hyper-V machines. It's a Core i7-950, 32GB, with Adaptec RAID, teamed multiport ethernet adapters, and several terabytes of mirrored arrays. I mount the media (tried both the original ISO and a physical DVD created from it); run setup.exe, click "install now." It launches, copies some files ($windows.~bt gets created and populated) and then it just exits to the desktop before ever prompting for the product key. Any ideas how to proceed? I am sure a clean install would work but I really don't want to mess with reconfiguring and recreating VMs if I can just upgrade it in-place.
Just an update... absolutely nothing has changed here. I get the same behavior with the newest VL media. Will try again after Tuesday, on the off-chance that they push an update for Server 2012 that fixes this problem in Server 2012R2 setup.
I don't know if this is related or not. But whenever I try to install Win8.1/Svr2012R2 on a system (real or VM) that already has a 'System Reserved' partition my $OEM$ files get loaded on to that 'SR' partition. Usually causing the install to hang or error out.