Hyper-V Do NOT list...

The easiest way to get a box loaded with Hyper-V, is to download the "Windows Server 2008 Datacenter, Enterprise and Standard (x64) - DVD" ISO from your MSDN Subscriber Downloads site, build your box, add the Hyper-V role... and go. That's not to say there aren't other options... and 2008 Core certainly is an attractive option. But it obviously depends on your needs, and the the scale of what you're doing. If you just want to build a box with Hyper-V to kick the tires... here is a DO-NOT list to keep in mind...

1. Don't install any version of the 32-bit 2008 and expect Hyper-V to work... it only works on 64-bit hardware.
2. Don't install "2008 x64 without Hyper-V" and expect to upgrade to Hyper-V... you can't (or if you can, the how is not obvious).
3. If you don't want 2008 Core... don't download Hyper-V from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads because it only installs 2008 Core.
4. Probably obvious... but don't install 2008 x64 Core and expect to manage Hyper-V using an MMC from the console of the core... you'll need a Vista box with the MMC installed.
   

And the biggest don't I can think of...

Don't ever start a project without a plan (even a "kick the tires" project)! Because your most valuable resource is time! Ten minutes of reading can save you hours of wasted time!

Virtmgmt.msc still fails to launch under Vista SP1

After this post which served as a stop-gap to managing hyper-v guest instances with vmconnect.exe published as a TS Remote-App on a Vista box, I was hoping that I’d be able to use the virtmgmt.msc and vmconnect.exe natively from my Vista box, once patched to SP1. I’m at Vista SP1 now, but when launching the above, it still says MMC could not create the snap-in (and vmconnet.exe just fails to connect to guests). So, hopefully this gets resolved in the final release of either 2008 or Hyper-V… but no luck yet.

Tips: Remote administration of Hyper-V and guests got you down?

So, remote administration tools aren’t available for Hyper-V yet. And you’re probably fighting the whole relative mouse issue after RDPing into your 2008 box and trying to control your guests. In terms of a work around, I’ve tried just about everything I can think of – including copying the Hyper-V folder to my Vista box (hint – neither the MMC, nor the vmconnec.exe likes that). With Vista SP1 and 2008 releases pending, I’d imagine this will be fixed soon. Until then, Charlie Russel has a nice how-to for publishing the vmconnec.exe via TS-Remote Apps, and installing the resulting MSI on a Vista client. Very cool. And it works surprisingly well. The one caveat– if you don’t have your vmadditions installed in your guests, you’ll still be fighting the relative mouse control in the guest. Unfortunately, my CentOS guests don't have the additions quite yet. So it’s still only the 80% solution for me.

Tips: Adding roles to 2008?

Need to add a role to 2008? Use ServerManagerCmd. If you’re running Server Core, use ocsetup. On a related note, Ben has a good post on installing Hyper-V in a core configuration.

Windows 2008 with Hyper-V: The hypervisor is not running?

Trialing Hyper-V on Windows 2008, but not able to get your guest instances to fire-up? If you’re running an HPDL380 G5 for instance, and you’re getting an error message to the effect of “The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running”, and you’ve already flashed your BIOS, and made sure to enable hardware virtualization, and it’s still happening – make sure DEP (data execution prevention) is enabled in the BIOS too. On the DL380, this lives in the BIOS under Advanced>Processor Options>No-Execute Memory. After you power down, and power it back up (don’t just do a soft reset), you should be able to start your guest instances.

Getting Virtual Machine Additions (for Virtual Server) to work in Ubuntu 7.10

As anyone who’s worked with Linux distros under Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 can attest, getting them running is not particularly fun. Assuming you get past video problems, and can get your guest built, you then have to contend with limited support for vm-additions, CPU utilization problems, and the like. With apparent Linux-support improvements forthcoming, you might be able to wait. But if you can’t wait, it is possible to get the vm-additions installed and working in Ununtu. The key to making this work is converting the RPM’s to DEB packages via alien. Despite forum posts to the contrary, it will work.

After you’ve got your Ubuntu guest installed and running, grab a copy of the vm-additions and either mount the ISO in the guest via the management console, or just extract and copy the RPM’s over to the guest instance via SMB . After doing so, use alien to convert the RPM files to .DEB files, like so:

“$ sudo alien -k --script vmadd-full-2.0-1.i386.rpm”

Now that you’ve converted them, you should have *.DEB files in the directory you were working in. Go ahead and launch your package installer (e.g. GDebi Package Installer), and install vmadd-full-rhel_2.0-1_i386.deb. It should display a message to the effect of … “The Microsoft VM additions… (converted by alien)”. At this point, Gnome crashed on me (down at the bottom of VMAdditionsForLinux-README.txt in the vm-additions ISO it refers to having to exit the GUI). I’m telling you this because Gnome crashing doesn’t necessarily mean it’s broken.

If you’ve reached this point, for good measure check the install log.

It lives here… /var/log/vmadd-install.log

The only thing left to do would be test it…

“$ /etc/init.d/vmadd start”
“$ /etc/init.d/vmadd-heartbeat start
“$ /etc/init.d/vmadd-timesync start