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2. To work around this issue, you can generate a new certificate. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Shut down or save all virtual machines.
2. Restart the Hyper-V VMMS.
3. Start the virtual machines.

 Because the Hyper-V VMMS certificate is valid for one year, the update has to be applied to prevent this issue from occurring in the future

3. You must restart the computer after you apply this update

This post is a list of questions and answers for those trying to get started with the Microsoft hypervisor. It is based in part on information provided during the Hyper-V technology adoption programme and has been used with the kind permission of Microsoft Windows Virtualization product team supplemented with additional information where appropriate.

It was originally posted by  Mark Wilson  and now I am updating/adding information about Hyper-V R2 and SCVMM R2. Share !!!!

What’s new

Q. What are my options for installing Hyper-V?
A. Hyper-V is available as a role for x64 Editions of Windows Server 2008 Standard Enterprise or Datacentre editions (i.e. not for 32-bit x86 or Itanium architectures nor for web edition). The Hyper-V role is supported on either a server core or a full installation; however server core is recommended due to its increased security. In addition there is a standalone version of Hyper-V – Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 – designed for organisations who would like the benefits of Hyper-V but who do not run Windows (a comparison of features in the various Hyper-V products is available).

Q. I installed Hyper-V from the Windows Server 2008 media but it seems to be a pre-release version. Is that right?
A. Windows Server 2008 shipped with a beta version of Hyper-V. It is necessary to install an update to bring the Hyper-V components up to their RTM level as well as to update the integration components in the virtual machines. John Howard has blogged extensively on obtaining Hyper-V changes at RTM upgrade considerations and more.

Q. How can I tell which version of Hyper-V I have installed?
– There is the GUI way:
Browse to windowssystm32vmms.exe and check the properties -> details tab

-There is the command line way:
wmic datafile where name="c:\windows\system32\vmms.exe" get version

you should see a build version either way – here is the breakdown:

• Beta version = 6.0.6001.17101
• Release Candidate 0 (RC0) = 6.0.6001.18004
• Release Candidate 1 (RC1) = 6.0.6001.18010
• Release To Market (RTM) = 6.0.6001.18016

Check this post http://itaustralia.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9BBB35EDC026E06!135.entry for more details

Q. Hyper-V relies on hardware assisted virtualisation. How can I tell if my hardware supports this?
A. There is a software that do this for you. SecureAble by Gibson Research Corp. supports both vendors, Intel and AMD, and determines 3 important processor features and is free:

1/ 64-bit’ness
2/ Data Execution Prevention
3/ Hardware Virtualization

Q. How does Hyper-V’s disk input/output (IO) compare with a non-virtualised solution?
A. In order to ensure that IO will never be reported complete until it has been written to the physical disk Hyper-V does not employ any additional disk caching other than that provided by the guest operating system. In certain circumstances a Hyper-V VM can appear to provide faster disk access than a physical computer because Hyper-V batches up multiple requests and coalesces interrupts for greater efficiency and performance. In Microsft’s internal testing they also found that:

Q. How can I measure performance in Hyper-V?
A. The MSDN website features a section on measuring performance on Hyper-V (specifically relating to running BizTalk Server in a VM but equally applicable to many other workloads).

Q. Sometimes my virtual machines are paused automatically – why does this happen?
A. Rather than let a virtual machine run out of disk space Hyper-V will pause the VM if the server is running critically low on space. In addition an event (ID 16050) is written to the Hyper-V VMMS log.  Check the disk space on the disks that you store the VHD’s and the Snapshots. Be carefull when you take snapshot’s. Put the snapshot’s on a different disk rather than in the same disk that are stored the VHD’s

Q. I’m confused about the various versions of the integration components (ICs) for virtual machines. Why does each release of Hyper-V have it’s own ICs?
A. Integration Components (ICs) are version specific – i.e. the versions used within the child partitions must match the version of Hyper-V that is running in the parent partition (Windows Server 2008 RTM was shipped with the Hyper-V Beta ICs). The Hyper-V RTM upgrade package (see Microsoft knowledge base article 950050) includes the updates for both the parent and child partitions. In addition there are Hyper-V ICs for Linux and Professional Enterprise and Ultimate versions of the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 betas already come with Hyper-V integration components installed.

Q. Is there a method to incorporate the Hyper-V synthetic devices with Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) for servicing?
A. Performing maintenance on a Hyper-V host from within WinPE represents a challenge for systems administrators in that without the integration components virtual hard disks (.VHDs) must be connected to the IDE controller (limiting the number of VHD’s that can be used at any given point in time) and legacy network adapters might be required in order to provide network access. Mike Sterling has a great blog post on using the Hyper-V integration components with WinPE (using the Windows Automated Installation Kit to create a custom WinPE image including the appropriate files extracted from the Hyper-V integration services setup disk). Attaching the resulting .ISO image to a VM and powering it on should provide full access to all synthetic devices.

Q. What tools does Microsoft provide to manage Hyper-V?
A.
– Hyper-V Manager (  Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in ). This snap-in is also available for x86 (32-bit) versions of Windows Server 2008 as well as for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows 7.

In addtion, you will find a useful gadget by Tori Lerik ( see http://cardosoalessandro.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8B89CF11BFBAE32!560.entry for more details

–

System Center Virtual Machine Manager : SCVMM 2008. ( the version R2 is in beta now )

Whilst Hyper-V Manager is adequate for managing a single host (locally or remotely) remote management with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 provides a centralised management console designed to manage thousands of VMs across hundreds of physical servers running Virtual Server 2005 Hyper-V or even VMware ESX via VMware Virtual Center.

– PowerShell Scripts

Hyper-V can also be managed using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for example in a Windows PowerShell script and there is an open source PowerShell Management Library for Hyper-V available on CodePlex.

You find on TaylorBrown Blog too http://blogs.msdn.com/taylorb/archive/2008/06/16/hyper-v-wmi-creating-applying-deleting-virtual-machine-snapshots.aspx on

 Ben Armstong has some good stuff too http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/06/11/hyper-v-script-compact-vhd.aspx

here is an example of powershell script :

# Prompt for the Hyper-V Server to use

$HyperVServer = Read-Host "Specify the Hyper-V Server to use (enter '.' for the local computer)"

# Get name for VHD

$VHDName = Read-Host "Specify the name of the virtual had disk to compact"

# Get the Msvm_ImageManagementService object

$ImageManagementService = gwmi Msvm_ImageManagementService -namespace "rootvirtualization" -computername $HyperVServer

# Compact the VHD

$result = $ImageManagementService.CompactVirtualHardDisk($VHDName)  
 
 ..... to see the complete code visit Ben Blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/06/11/hyper-v-script-compact-vhd.aspx

Q. My version of Windows Server 2008 does not seem to have the Hyper-V Management tools available.
A. Windows Server 2008 SKUs without Hyper-V or for other architectures (i.e. 32-bit x86 and Itanium) do not include the Hyper-V management tools.

Q. What else can SCVMM offer that the standard management tools do not? What’s New in SCVMM R2?
A. Information on SCVMM may be found on the Microsoft website but the main features include:

Comprehensive Hypervisor Management – SCVMM 2007 already lets you manage Virtual Server and now we’ve added support for Hyper-V (including Hyper-V Server) and even VMware based environments (ESX and 3i) through a single management console and a single Powershell command line interface. If you’ve been using virtualization for some time now, chances are that you have some VMware. If you have Windows Server 2008 deployed, you already have Hyper-V. Now, with SCVMM 2008, you can manage both in a seamless and fully integrated way – every feature of SCVMM works against each of the supported virtualization platforms but we still enable features specific to each including Quick Migration on Hyper-V and Vmotion on VMware.

Physical Resource Optimization (PRO) – By integrating the application specific knowledge provided by System Center Operations Manager, SCVMM allows you to calibrate your resource assignments based upon the real-time demands of your datacenter. Rather than migrating VMs around based on generic metrics like CPU and memory utilization, we’ve worked closely with partners to provide you with the best possible information (specific to your environment) before making changing to your infrastructure.  In the coming weeks, look for new SCVMM PRO partners announcements on this blog.

Delegated Administration – SCVMM allows you to segment your environment and assign management authorization to each segment to different Active Directory users and/or groups.  In addition, SCVMM provides an integrated web-based self-service user interface allowing authorized users to provision and manage their own virtual machines. Administrators can control which templates these users can provision VMs from, determine which actions they are allowed to take and even assign quotas for chargeback purposes.

Highly Available Virtual Machines – SCVMM makes enabling high availability for virtual machines as simple as a single click. Our intelligent placement feature ensures that the VM is deployed or migrated only to a highly available physical host (using Windows clustering for Hyper-V or VMware HA for ESX) and configures the VM for high availability on that host.

Integrated Physical and Virtual Machine Management – SCVMM isn’t an island – it is part of the comprehensive System Center family of products. System Center allows you to patch, monitor, back up, deploy and manage your entire physical and virtual infrastructure.

Q. I have a fully-patched Hyper-V host and SCVMM 2008 installation but SCVMM says my host needs attention. Have I missed something?
A. Install the following updates on the computer that will host the virtual machine that has VMM preinstalled if you will add that computer as a virtual machine host on the VMM server and on any other hosts you add to VMM:

Q. How can I patch the virtual machines that are held offline (templates etc.)?
A. Offline VMs may be patched using the Microsoft Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool.

Q. I’m trying to configure remote management for Hyper-V and it seems very difficult.
A. You need to run this commands:

netsh advfirewall set allprofiles settings remotemanagement enable
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Administration" new enable=yes
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Desktop" new enable=yes
cscript %windir%system32scregedit.wsf /AR 0
cscript %windir%system32scregedit.wsf /CS 0
winrm quickconfig -q

or you could use the Hyper-V Remote Management Configuration from  http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/HVRemote

Q. I’m using the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection to access the console of one of my Hyper-V virtual machines but every time I press Ctrl+Alt+left to release the mouse (I do not have integration components installed) my screen turns 90°. Have i been infected with a virus?
A. Probably not! Some Intel chipsets use that key combination to rotate the display. Either turn off that functionality in the display driver settings or press Alt+Tab to break out of the VM and change the hotkey in the Hyper-V settings.

Q. Virtualisation is often cited as an enabler for green IT – how can that be? Surely I’m just moving the same heat and power requirements into one place?
A. An underutilised server still uses a significant proportion of its maximum power and consolidation of many low-utilisation servers onto a shared infrastructure will normally result in power supplies running more efficiently and a net reduction in power consumption.

By consolidating many servers onto onto a smaller number of servers using virtualisation then many servers may be retired. These older servers are likely to be less efficient than a modern server and will all require cooling resulting in further power cooling savings.

Whilst disposal of old servers is not very “green” some servers may be redeployed in scenarios where a physical infrastructure is still required.

Q. Does Hyper-V work in conjunction with the Processor Power Management (PPM) power savings in Windows Server 2008?
A. When the Hyper-V server role is enabled system sleep states (standby and hibernate) are disabled. The major savings in power and cooling requirements are gained by switching servers off and by viewing overall demand for the entire virtualised infrastructure rather than working at an individual sever level it is possible to use management technologies to bring servers on and offline in order to meet demand.

Q. With Microsoft Virtual Server it’s really difficult to access the virtual machine BIOS. Is there still a virtual machine BIOS?
A. Hyper-V VMs do still have a virtual machine BIOS; however all of the BIOS features (e.g. numlock setting boot device order etc.) may be set in the virtual machine configuration or using a script. As a conseqence of this Microsoft has removed the ability to access the BIOS at boot time.

Q. Hyper-V can import and export its own xml-based VM configurations but not the legacy .VMC format. Is there a way to migrate my Virtual Server and VirtualPC settings to Hyper-V without recreating the configuration manually (I’m not using SCVMM)?
A. As mentioned when discussing V2V migrations above Matthijs ten Seldam (The author of VMRCplus) was written a VMC to Hyper-V import tool (remove the VM Additions before importing to save effort later). Check out this tool here : http://blogs.technet.com/matthts/archive/2008/09/12/vmc-to-hyper-v-import-tool-available.aspx

Q. Can a virtual machine boot from SAN (FC or iSCSI) NAS USB disk or Firewire disks (the boot order in the BIOS settings only shows floppy CD IDE and network)?
A. Virtual hard disks (VHDs) can be used to boot or run a VM from:

It’s also possible to assign a non-removable volume (direct attached storage or a SAN LUN) to an IDE channel in the VM settings and to boot from that device.

Q. Is it possible for Hyper-V virtual machines to access USB devices?
A. Not directly and although many people would like to see this functionality Microsoft is adamant that this is a client-side virtualisation feature and have no plans to include USB support in the product at this time. There is a workaround using the Remote Desktop Connection client though (and this approach can also be used for audio).

Q. How can I move VM images to another physical disk?
A. With Hyper-V the simplest approach I’ve found for moving virtual machines is to export the VM and import it to a new location. Alternatively you could move the VHD and create a new virtual machine configuration.

Q. I’m confused by the various network interfaces on my Hyper-V host – what’s going on?
A. It’s not as confusing as it first looks! The parent partition is also virtualised and all communications run via a virtual switch (vswitch). In effect the physical network adapters (pNICs) are unbound from all clients services and protocols except the Microsoft Virtual Network Switch Protocol. The virtual network adapters (vNICs) in the parent and child partitions connect to the vswitch. Further vswitches may be created for internal communications or bound to additional pNICs; however only one vswitch can be bound to a particular pNIC at any one time. Virtual machines can have multiple vNICs connected to multiple vswitches. Ben Armstrong has a good explanation of Hyper-V networking (with pictures) on his blog and I described more in an earlier post on Hyper-V and networking.

Q. Can I use Hyper-V over a wireless connection?
A. Out of the box Hyper-V does not support connecting virtual machines to wireless network adapters.  As a primarily server focused product this is a reasonable limitation – especially given evils that we need to do to get wireless network adapters to work with virtual machines.  But all is not lost – it is possible to setup an internal virtual network (as discussed yesterday) and utilize Internet Connection Sharing (as discussed here) to get you up and going.

The first thing to do is to create a new internal virtual network switch:

1. Open the Hyper-V Manager and select your server.
2. Select Virtual Network Manager… from the action pane (on the right).
3. Select New virtual network and choose to Add an Internal network.
4. Give the new virtual network the name you want hit OK.

Now to setup Internet Connection Sharing:

1. Open the Control Panel and open Network and Sharing Center.
2. Select Manage network connections from the list on the left.
3. Locate the icon for your wireless network adapter, right click on it and select Properties.
4. Change to the Sharing tab.
5. Check Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.
6. If you have multiple network adapters you will need to select the specific entry for the internal virtual network switch.
7. Click OK.

Posted by Ben on http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/01/09/using-hyper-v-with-a-wireless-network-adapter.aspx

Q. Is NIC teaming supported?
A.  Microsoft officially supports storage multipathing; they don’t officially support NIC teaming. (See this KB article or this KB article.)
But, there are some implementations. Check here Broadcom NIC Teaming and Hyper-V  and here How To Configure Teaming and VLANs on Hyper-V

Q. The virtual machine settings include a processor option which limits processor functionality to run an older operating system such as Windows NT on the virtual machine. What does this feature actually do?
A. This feature is designed to allow backwards compatibility for older operating systems such as Windows NT 4.0 (which performs a CPUID check and if CPUID returns more than three leaves it will fail). By selecting the processor functionality check box Hyper-V will limit CPUID to only return three leaves and therefore allow Windows NT 4.0 to successfully install. It is possible that other legacy operating systems could have a similar issue.

Q. Does this mean that Windows NT 4.0 is supported on Hyper-V?
A. Absolutely not. Windows NT 4.0 is outside its mainstream and extended support lifecycle and is not supported on Hyper-V and no integration components will be released for Windows NT 4.0.

Q. But one of the stated advantages for virtualisation is running legacy operating systems where hardware support is becoming problematic. Does this mean I can’t virtualise my remaining Windows NT computers?
A. The difference here is between “possible” and “supported”. Many legacy (and current) operating systems will run on Hyper-V (with emulated drivers) but are not supported. Windows NT is no longer supported whether it is running on physical or virtual hardware. Microsoft do highlight that Windows NT 4.0 has been tested and qualified on Virtual Server 2005 and that Virtual Server may be managed (along with Hyper-V and VMware ESX) using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008.

Q. I want to copy files between Hyper-V virtual machines. Is there a way to do this?
A. Microsoft make a distinction between client-side and server-side virtualisation usage scenarios and note that virtualisation servers are typically managed by a group of administrators who want to deploy a secure locked down server by default (and do not want additional attack vectors created through virtualisation). This is the reason that Hyper-V does not include shared folder or drag and drop functionality (nor are there any plans to do so at a later date). The options for transferring data from one virtual machine to another are:

Microsoft’s stated position is that in the case of client-side virtualisation a single user is running a virtualisation product (e.g. Virtual PC) locally ands expects the capability to move files from one virtual machine to another. For this reason Virtual PC includes shared folder support (but are not set by default).

Q. How does this work if I move a Virtual PC VM with shared folders to a Virtual Server or Hyper-V system?
A. In this case the shared folders guest components won’t load because the required server-side components are not available in Virtual Server or Hyper-V

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