Hyper-V | Todd's Blog

I installed Hyper-V Server a couple of weeks back. I decided to use the standalone server as opposed to installing Windows Server 2008 and adding the virtualization role. I really like how the Hyper-V Server was easy to install and the fact that the guest OS’s sit on top of the Hyper-V Server so there is no host OS that could get screwed up. Yes technically it shares the same kernel as Windows 2008 Server, but the fact you can’t do much with it really helps the stability.

Anyways, I installed Hyper-V server and put two guest OS’s on top. I then found the machines couldn’t route traffic off the guest OS’s, even though they were getting IP addresses from the networks DHCP server and I was able to manage them through the client admin tools. After doing some searches on the internet, I found out it was a common issue. I ended up having to download the network card drivers from the web and installing them. In my case, the drivers were a gui install, but I put them on a memory stick anyways, plugged in the stick to the Hyper-V Server and in the host OS, ran the client command. It installed showing a GUI and after a reboot, the NIC was working properly from within the guest operating systems.

It’s pretty slick and presently the server is in my office as I plan to install more RAM and a quad-core CPU into the server and install a few more guest operating systems.

Was talking with a friend a few nights back about how to dual-boot between Vista and Windows Server 2008. He was having some troubles with it so I suggested instead of Dual-booting, he should try and use virtualization product as his host OS and run his Client OS’s on top of it. Dual-boot I think is best for his situation, but if he was having troubles, virtualization might be the trick. Now I don’t have much experience with the VMware product, but I know they have something that will do this and I also mentioned Microsoft is releasing something along the same lines. I had saw a blog post about it a while back, but nothing else. I told my friend I would look for the information and pass it along when I found something.

Last Wednesday, I noticed throughout the blogs I read that Microsoft released their product , Hyper-V Server. It was nice finding it in the RSS feeds, because I don’t have to go digging up the info for my friend.

From what I can tell, Microsoft’s product is basically like Windows 2008 Server Core without the option to add any roles except virtualization. You also need a Vista or another Server with a gui to manage the Hyper-V server. Depending on how many virtual machines you want to get going, you’re probably going to want to have loads of ram, good CPU’s and lots of hard disk space

To get information on Hyper-V Server, got Microsoft’s Hyper-V homepage at http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/default.mspx

Installing Hyper-V Server

Hyper-V Server Released