Yet Another Virtualization Platform! Hyper-V is Microsoft’s entry in the virtualization market. It is a competitor to VMware’s Fusion and Oracle’s VM VirtualBox. I have used both of these other products in the past and I still use VirtualBox from time to time. Hyper-V is available in three versions. There is Hyper-V for Windows Servers, Hyper-V Servers, and Hyper-V on Windows 10. Hyper-V for Windows Servers is an add-on to the Windows Server OS. Hyper-V Servers is a standalone solution . Hyper-V on Windows 10 is the version that you can run on your laptop or desktop computer. I have installed it on my Win 10 laptop and it works well. I am currently doing an install on a Windows 10 desktop computer. Well actually there isn’t any software to install. Hyper-V is built into Windows 10 as an optional feature so there is no Hyper-V download.
There are a few requirements that you need to check off before you can use Hyper-V. You must be running Windows 10 Enterprise, Pro, or Education. It cannot be installed on Windows 10 Home. If you have Windows 10 Home, you must upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. You need to have a 64-bit Processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT). You need CPU support for VM Monitor Mode Extension (VT-c on Intel CPUs). You must have a minimum of 4 GB memory in your system. While 4 GB is the minimum, having 8 GB to 16 GB would be better.
After you have determined that your computer meets the requirements for using Hyper-V, you can enable Hyper-V on your computer. You can do the from the command line (cli) or from the control panel. I am just going to talk about using the cli. You can search on how to enable Hyper-V in the control panel.
There are basically two commands that you run to enable Hyper-V. Run a PowerShell command as Administrator. Make sure you do it as Adminstrator or it won’t work. Enter the following command:
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
When the installation has completed, reboot. Once the computer has rebooted and we are logged in, we will open up a PowerShell command as Administrator again. We will want to enable Hyper-V with the Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool (DISM). DISM helps configure Windows and Windows images. Among its many applications, DISM can enable Windows features while the operating system is running.
In our PowerShell we will type in the following command:
DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /All /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V
At this point Hyper-V has been enable and is ready for us to use. But first we have to create a virtual environment. Open Hyper-V Quick Create from the windows start menu. Once the Hyper-V Quick Create application has started, you can select an operation system from the menu or you can chose your own by selecting the Local installation source. Then you will press the Create Virtual Machine button in the application. After the virtual environment has been created, open Hyper-V Manager from the windows start menu. This application will allow you to configure your virtual environment and also start it. That’s about all there is to it. For Windows users, Hyper-V allows you to experiment with other operating system in a familiar environment.