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How to create new Hyper-V virtual machine?
Let me show you how to add new Windows Server 2008 R2 as a guest operating system on top of Hyper-V 2.0, which is part of the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. So, I have Windows Server 2008 R2 installed on my machine, I have Hyper-V role installed and enabled (How to install role in Windows Server 2008), and now I’ll create new virtual machine for another Windows Server 2008 R2. If you don’t have Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V, but you still want to use virtualization, then you can use Windows Virtual PC to create virtual machines. So, let’s start.
As I said, I have Hyper-V role installed and enabled, and with that I have Hyper-V Manager installed. To access it, you can either open it through Server Manager or through Start –> Administrative tools menu.
Hyper-V Manager is central place for you virtual machines, where you can see all virtual machines installed, as well as other options. In this example, I don’t have any virtual machine installed, so I’ll create new one. One the left side do right-click on the name of your PC, and then select New->Virtual Machine.
Other way to do this is to go to the top right corner of the Hyper-V Manager, and there you have the same menu.
Now you’ll get the Before You Begin window which welcomes you and introduces you to creation of virtual machine. Here you just have the option not to see this window again, you can select it if you want. Click on Next.
Now you’ll see Specify name and location window, where you need to write the name of your virtual machine (in our example it will be Windows Server 2008 R2) and to specify location where this virtual machine will be stored.
I have all my virtual machines stored on separate partition on my hard drive. Click on Next.
Next thing you have to do is to assign memory to your virtual machine. For the installation of the OS, I recommend to give little bit more RAM than needed, just to speed up the process. I have 4GB of RAM on my laptop, I’ll normally give 512MB or 1024MB to my guest machine, but only for installation you might want to use 3GB for guest OS. Of course, you can change this amount whenever you can.
Now we’ll configure networking. In most cases, you want your virtual machine to be able to communicate with other virtual machines, or with host OS, so now you can attach network adapters to it. I have two network adapters previously created, one is external, which means that using that adapter my virtual machine will be able to communicate with physical NIC and access the internet, and internal, which means my virtual machine will be able to communicate with host OS and other virtual machines, but it won’t be able to access the internet. If you don’t have manually created adapters, you’ll see only your physical NICs, you select it.
A virtual machines requires storage so that you can install an operating system. Operating systems are installed in Virtual Hard Drive (.vhd) files, and now you have to option to create new virtual hard drive, use an existing one (if you have it), or to attach a virtual hard disk later. We’ll create a new one, we’ll give it a name and location, and maximum size.
And now we get a window where we can choose what to do with the installation of the operating system. We can choose to install it later, now (you can choose to install it from CD/DVD drive or from ISO image, whatever you have prepared), from a boot floppy disk or to install operating system from a network-based installation server. I have my Windows Server 2008 R2 burned on DVD drive F: , so I chose this option.
Last window is just confirmation window, which shows you some info about your new virtual machine.
Just click on Finish, and that’s it. Now you’ll see your new virtual machine, in our example named Windows Server 2008 R2, on the list of available virtual machines.
In next post, I’ll explain you how to start newly created virtual machine and how to install Windows Server 2008 R2 in it. Stay tuned.
By Ilija Brajkovic | August 23, 2009
Tags: hyper-v, microkernelized, R2, tutorial, virtualization, windows server, windows server 2008
Category: hyper-v | Comments
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