If you installed the 64bit edition of Windows Server 2008 it is possible to integrate virtualization of 32bit and 64bit guest operating systems into your Operating System. In order to use this you need a processor that supports hardware assisted virtualization.
Be aware that installing the Hyper-V Server Role could lead to a huge performance drop! Installation
To install Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 64bit, do the following steps:
1. Start the
Server Manager by clicking the
Server Manager icon in the systray, or the
Server Manager shortcut in directly the
Start menu or in the menu
Administrative Tools.
2. In the
Server Manager click below the category
Roles Summary on
Add Roles.
3. At the
Before You Begin page click
Next.
4. Check the
Hyper-V role and click
Next.
5. Review the introduction and notes and click
Next.
6. At the
Create Virtual Network page check your internet connection network card to have internet in your virtual pc’s, or leave it to leave your virtual pc’s offline. Then click
Next.
7. Review the roles to install and your settings, then click
Next.
8. After installing the Hyper-V serverrole, click
Yes to restart your computer.
9. After the computer has restarted the Hyper-V setup will be completed. After the installation has completed click
Close to finish the wizard.
10. To create, start and configure virtual pc’s go to the Server Manager as described in step 1, expand
Roles ->
Hyper-V ->
Microsoft Hyper-V Servers and finally click your computername.
My own Hyper-V installation
My Hardware:
Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3 Motherboard with
DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2 CPU.
Directly after the Hyper-V Serverrole installation had finished I tried starting a virtual machine, but got the message “
The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running.”. I looked this error up on the internet, and it came out that I had an old version of my bios software (< stepping 3). Your processor needs at least stepping 3 to run Hyper-V. To check which stepping you currently have download and run CPU-Z from http://www.cpuid.com/.To upgrade the bios I went to the support site of my motherboard and downloaded the newest version of my
bios. First I created a Windows startup disk. After creating the startup disk I extracted the files m56ss3.f4e and FLASH895.EXE to that floppy. Next I rebooted my pc and booted up from the floppy. After the I got the command prompt of the startup disk I entered the following command
flash895 m56ss3.f4e to upgrade my bios software. After the upgrade had completed I reset the pc, went to the bios and Enabled hardware virtualization.
“Now my Hyper-V MUST work” I thought, but after clicking
Start of a Virtual Machine I again got the message “
The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running.”!! I did some research, and I found that the hypervisor was not added to my Boot Environment. To add the hypervisor to the boot environment start the command prompt and enter the following command: BCDEdit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto. After you get response “The operation completed successfully.”, reboot your system and Hyper-V should work now! If not, take a look in your Hyper-V Event Viewer (See Troubleshooting) and try to find out what the problem is.
Troubleshooting
Question: How can I see if my CPU supports Virtualization?
Answer: Download the tool SecurAble and look if your processor supports 64bit, Hardware DEP and Hardware Virtualization.
Question: After creating a new Virtual Machine in the Hyper-V section in the Server Manager and clicking Start, I get the error message: “
The virtual machine could not be started because the hypervisor is not running.”Answer: The Hyper-V hypervisor needs to be running. If it isn’t running there are probably errors when starting the service. Errors of the Hyper-V Server Role can be found in the
Server Manager under
Diagnostics ->
Event Viewer ->
Custom Views ->
Server Roles ->
Microsoft Hyper-V. Search the error messages at google or in the Server Virtualization section at the Technet Forums.
