Hyper-V is a virtual machine from Microsoft

Hyper-V is a hypervisor-based virtual machine from Microsoft with hardware virtualization support for 64-bit systems. Previously, the hypervisor was used only in Microsoft server operating systems.

Microsoft Hyper-V works only on 64-bit Windows operating systems, in Pro (Professional) and Enterprise (Corporate) editions, in Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 operating systems, as well as in server operating systems (Windows Server).

The editions of these operating systems have the Hyper-V feature disabled by default. The user can turn on the Hyper-V virtual machine without installing third-party virtualization programs (for example, VirtualBox) on their computer.

Hyper-V Hypervisor

The virtual hypervisor (Hyper-V) allows you to create a virtual machine for installing a guest operating system. Using a virtual guest operating system, you can get acquainted with working in a new operating system, test settings, experiment, install unfamiliar programs, etc. All these actions will not affect the operation and settings of the real operating system installed on your computer.

The hypervisor was originally created for server operating systems, so working in a Hyper-V virtual machine has some limitations: there is no support for sound cards and burning CD / DVD discs, the application has limited visual settings compared to competitors, there is no possibility of direct copying or inserting files between real and guest systems, etc.

For testing, this is not the most important thing, so the more ascetic Hyper-V settings, for some users, will be more to their liking than similar settings from more advanced competitors.

Keep in mind that when the real (host) and guest operating systems are running at the same time, the resources of one computer are consumed, so you should not try to work in a virtual machine on a weak computer. While working in a virtual OS, do not use resource-intensive applications on a real computer in order not to slow down the computer.

The article will cover the installation and configuration of Hyper-V in the Windows 10 operating system. In Windows 8.1 or in Windows 8, settings are made in a similar way.

Installing Hyper-V

You must first enable the Hyper-V feature. Go to “Control Panel”, then “Programs and Features”, click on “Turn Windows features on or off”.

In the “Windows Components” window, check the box next to “Hyper-V”, and then click on the “OK” button.

After searching for the required files and applying the changes, you must restart your computer.

In the Start menu, in the Windows Administrative Tools folder, you will see the desktop application Hyper-V Manager. Run the program on your computer.

In the application window, click on the computer name, a column with a list of commands that are available from the “Actions” menu will open on the right.

Now you can set up your internet connection.

Click on “Virtual Switch Manager”. In the next window, in the “Create virtual switch” section, select the “External” switch type, and then click on the “Create virtual switch” button.

Next, in the “External network” item, come up with a name for the virtual switch, then from the list of available network adapters, select the adapter used to connect to the Internet on your computer. After selecting the settings, click on the “OK” button.

In the warning window that opens, agree to apply the changes to the computer.

Create a Hyper-V virtual machine

To start the process of creating a virtual machine, follow the path: menu “Action”, “Create”, “Virtual machine …”. Next, the virtual machine creation wizard will open.

In the first “Getting Started” window, click on the “Next” button. In the next “Specify a name and location” window, give a friendly name for the created virtual machine (I called “Windows 7×64”), and choose a location to save it.

By default, the virtual machine files are saved on the “C” drive in the “ProgramData” folder:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V

On my computer, virtual machines are saved not on the system drive, but on another drive in a special folder (“Virtual Machines”). Therefore, if you want to save the virtual machine in a folder other than the default, check the box next to “Save the virtual machine in another location” and then select the folder to save. Create a folder for storing virtual machine files in advance.

In the “Specify Generation” window, “Generation 1” is selected by default, which is suitable for most cases. “Generation 2” does not boot from all images, in essence, it is a virtual machine with UEFI.

In the Allocate Memory window, you need to select the amount of memory to allocate for this virtual machine. I allocated 2 GB of memory from my computer out of 8 GB.

In the next Network Setup window, select the previously created network adapter (virtual switch).

The “Connect virtual hard disk” window will display information about the name of the virtual machine, its location on the hard disk, the amount of disk space allocated for the virtual machine (the default was 127 GB, I chose 50 GB).

In the “Installation Options” window, you can choose the option to install the operating system: install later or select the preferred installation option.

To install the OS, select “Install an operating system from a bootable CD or DVD”. Here, select “Physical CD or DVD” to install the system from a disc placed in the optical drive, or select “Image file (.iso)” to install the operating system directly from the ISO image of the OS that is on the computer.

Using the “Browse…” button, I selected the image of the Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 operating system located on the external hard drive that is currently connected to my computer.

The Completing the Create Virtual Machine Wizard window displays the configuration of the created virtual machine. Click on the “Finish” button to complete the creation of the VM.

After applying the settings, the created virtual machine will appear in the “Hyper-V Manager” window, and its settings will be displayed.

To start the installation process, select the virtual machine, select “Connect …” in the context menu.

In the window that opens, enter the “Action” menu, select the “Start” command, or simply click on the green “Start” button.

Next, in the window of the Windows Hyper-V virtual machine, the process of installing the operating system on the computer, in this case Windows 7, will begin.

On my site you can read detailed articles about the process of installing Windows operating systems.

After the installation of the operating system is complete, the guest OS is ready to go. In this image, you can see that my (host) machine is running Windows 10, and the window is running a Hyper-V virtual machine running Windows 7.

In a virtual machine, you can create snapshots of the virtual system (checkpoints) in order to save the state of the operating system for a certain period of time.

You can create a checkpoint from the application window. You can manage checkpoints (restore the state of the virtual machine, delete unnecessary points) from the “Checkpoints” section in the Hyper-V Manager.

File sharing in Hyper-V

In a Hyper-V virtual machine, dragging and copying files between the physical and virtual operating systems does not work as it is implemented in VMware Workstation or in VirtualBox. Data exchange between the guest and the systems installed on the PC can be implemented using shared network folders.

Create and configure a shared folder on the real operating system to access the shared folder from the virtual system. Then create and configure the shared folder on the virtual machine to access the shared folder from the real system. How to do this, read the article on this site.

After completing the settings, you can share data over the network by transferring files from the computer to a shared folder on a virtual machine, or vice versa, from a virtual machine to a shared folder located in the operating system on the computer.

Article Conclusions

Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtual machine is built in Pro and Enterprise editions on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8 64-bit operating systems. After installing and configuring the Hyper-V hypervisor, create and install a virtual machine with a guest operating system to test software, which does not affect the main operating system installed on the computer.