Installing Windows 2012 R2 on ProLiant DL380 G7 without SmartStart Since HP SmartStart CD went the way of the dodo bird before Windows 2012 R2 was released, HP ProLiants older than a Gen8 require administrators to manually install Windows 2012 R2.  On ProLiant Gen8 and higher, you have Intelligent Provisioning – the replacement for SmartStart – embedded on the system, but this isn’t available on G7, so the user needs to manually install Windows according to the Implementing Microsoft Windows Se...