Hyper-V for creating VMs in Windows

• Hyper-V is a type-1 virtualization platform in windows that can be used to create and manage virtual machines (VMs) directly in the Windows operating system without installing any third party hypervisors like virtual box.
• Hyper-V is a type-1 hypervisor because when it is enabled, it effectively transforms the host operating system into a virtual machine running on top of the Hyper-V hypervisor.
• Virtual machines of many Windows and Linux based operating systems are supported in Hyper-V

Check if virtualization is enabled in Task Manager’s performance tab

Virtualization in CPU should be enabled for Hyper-V. It can be checked in Task Manager

Add Hyper-V feature for Windows home edition

• Hyper-V is not present in Windows home edition by default.
• It can be enabled by running a batch script with the following text

rem install_hyperv.bat file

pushd "%~dp0"

dir /b %SystemRoot%\\servicing\\Packages\\*Hyper-V*.mum >hyper-v.txt

for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . hyper-v.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:"%SystemRoot%\\servicing\\Packages\\%%i"

del hyper-v.txt

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Hyper-V -All /LimitAccess /ALL

pause

Enable Hyper-v in windows features

• For windows desktop OS, Hyper-V feature can be enabled in Windows Features as shown below.

• For Windows servers, the Hyper-V role should be enabled to user Hyper-V.

Hyper-v manager

• Hyper-V Manager provides a UI to manage the virtual machines
• Search for Hyper-V manager and run as administrator
• You can also open it from command line by opening command prompt as administrator and type virtmgmt.msc

Create a VM from ISO file in Hyper-V manager

• Download ISO for the OS. For this example, we are downloading windows server 2022 evaluation edition. The OS is free to use for about 18 days
• In the right pane, click New → Virtual Machine. Specify the new VM name and also if required specify another folder location for storing VM

• Specify VM Generation (Generation 2 is preferred)

• Specify Start-up RAM (generally keep it at least 1024 MB). Dynamic Memory option can also be used to allocate only the required amount of RAM to VM while it is running

• Configure virtual switch for VM network adapter

• Configure virtual hard disk size for VM

• Select ISO file for VM operating system. Create a new VM.

• Start the new VM from Hyper-V Manager.

• Connect to VM after VM has started

• Select the required server setup options for the first time booting

• Now the VM is setup and can be managed from Hyper-V Manager.

Stop and start the Hyper-V service

• Click “Stop Service” in the right pane of Hyper-V Manager to stop Hyper-V service
• To start the service start the windows service “Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management” in services.msc

Video

The video for this post can be seen here

References

• Explanation on why Hper-V is a type 1 hypervisor - https://superuser.com/a/836123
• Hyper-V official documentation - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/about/