What's the best way of running a virtual machine on WHS?

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zicoz

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Jan 7, 2011
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I'm looking for a way to have a virtual machine running Windows 7 on WHS 2k11, I first wanted to simply run Microsofts Virtual-PC, but it seems that it's only meant for Windows 7, what's the best sollution for this?
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Did Microsoft follow through on their promise to disable the 'Hyper-V' role on WHS2011? I'm guessing they did. If not, enable it and set up the VM.

If you haven't loaded your WHS2011 machine yet, you could always get the Hyper-V server (the free bare-metal version of hyper-V) and run both WHS2011 and your Win7 client under it in parallel.
 

zicoz

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Jan 7, 2011
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It seems as if they removed it, there are the follwing roles:

Active Directory Certificate Services*
Active Directory Federation Services
Active Directory Rights Management Services
Application Server
DHCP Server
DNS Server
Fax Server
File Services*
Network Policy and Access Services*
Print and Document Services
Remote Desktop Services
Web Server IIS*
Windows Deployment Services
Windows Server Update Services

* = currently installed

It's installed, but I'm awaiting final release versions of Drive Bender and DrivePool before I deploy it, so I'm currently doing some testing so I'll do some reinstalls before it's deployed.

I looked at runnins WHS under Hyper-V, the problem was that when I read that I can only passthrough 2 SATA controllers I got a bit worried, but with my curent plans of getting a 4 external SAS ports (Like LSI 9200-16e) I guess that isn't really an issue.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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What are you going to user Windows 7 for? VirtualBox may be a simple answer for you.

One thing that is really cool is Hyper-V + RemoteFX in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. I have become a big fan of this.
 

zicoz

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Jan 7, 2011
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I was hoping to remove one physical box, and integrate my download server with my file server, so it'll be running things like uTorrent, FTP-client and SABNZBD. These are all things I could run on WHS, but I'd prefer to have it run on a seperate machine because it'll be more experimental and I don't want to have to reinstall the entire file server just because I messed up the download part. Another problem is that torrent is a bandwith hog, and I don't want to cripple the I/O of the file serving.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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That is a pretty decent guide. Hyper-V Manager setup is a real pain, I completely agree with the author's comments.
 

zicoz

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Jan 7, 2011
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Thanks I'll give it another go then.

Btw, is there any advantages of using Hyper-V server over Server 2008 r2 with Hyper-V role?

I'm thinking that instead of having to install and set upHyper-V Manager on a bunch of computers I can just do it on the 2008 r2 server then remote desktop into it when I need to do something.

One thing is price, but since I have a Technet Subscription that isn't really an issue. Are there any performance issues with 2008r2+Hyper-V role? Any other reasons this might not be a good idea?
 
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Patrick

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Personally, I do the RDC to Windows Server 2008 R2 mostly, especially since I use my MacBook Air 11" often. Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V works well. I will reserve comment on the TechNet thing since you know your application and the TechNet license better than I do.
 

zicoz

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Jan 7, 2011
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Yeah, Technet is meant for testing, but atm atleast I considder my messing around testing. Will have to see what I do when I put the setup into "production mode". I can always just import the virtual machines to a Hyper-V server.
 
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zicoz

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Jan 7, 2011
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Hmm, is it not possible to pass through an entire controller in HyperV? Do I have to manually add each drive?
 

Metaluna

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Dec 30, 2010
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Is there any downside to using ESXi for this? I recently started using it after running Hyper-V for a while, and the setup and management is much simpler, at least on a simple home network. Also ESXi allows full hardware passthrough (but ironically, not single disk passthrough without jumping through some hoops).

The only thing I miss about Hyper-V is the ability to use Windows Server Backup to backup the VM's.