Welcome to the ITFreeTraining video on installing Hyper-V on Windows Server 2012 R2. Hyper-V
is a Microsoft virtualization solution allowing the administrator to create and run virtual
machines. I will now change to my computer running Windows Server 2012 R2 to perform
the install.
This is a fresh install of Windows Server 2012 R2. The only configuration that has occurred
on the server is to give it an IP Address and add it to the domain. To start the install,
run Server Manager and, from under the manage menu, select the option “Add Roles and Features”
to start the wizard.
Once I am past the welcome screen, on the next screen I will be asked if I want to install
the role or feature on a single server or use remote desktop services to perform the
install. In this case I want to add the role to the local server so I will accept the default
and move on.
The next screen will ask which server I want to perform the install on. I will leave it
on the locally selected server and move on. I could also select a remote server here to
perform the install on if I wanted to.
On the next screen, I need to decide which role I want to install. In this case, I will
select the role “Hyper-V”. When I install the role, I will be prompted for additional
features. These are required to install the Hyper-V role so I will press the button “Add
Features”.
The wizard will now perform some checks of the system to ensure that it can run Hyper-V.
Notice that I get an error message. This is stating that virtualization has not been enabled
in the Bios. This is a common issue you may encounter when attempting to install Hyper-V.
To enable it, I will now restart the Server by right clicking the start menu and then
selecting the restart option. The server will take just a moment to restart.
Once restarted, the BIOS screen will appear. Notice in this particular case I need to press
delete in order to access the BIOS. The key that you need to press may be different depending
on which BIOS comes with your computer.
Once I press delete, I will be taken in to the BIOS. Different BIOS’s will have this
setting in different places. In this BIOS I need to select the option “Advanced BIOS
Features”. From here, I need to change the option “Virtualization” from disabled
to enabled. In your BIOS this may have a different name, for example the option Intel VT may
need to be enabled. If the option is not available, you may need to perform a BIOS update in order
to have access to the option.
Once the change is made, I can press F10 to save the change and then exit the BIOS, allowing
the computer to restart with virtualization enabled. The server will not take too long
to start up. Once it has started, I will log back in and then run Server Manager.
From Server Manager I will select the option “Add roles and features”. From the wizard
I will accept all the default options and, like before, I will select the role “Hyper-V”
from the list of available roles and then press the button “Add Features”. Notice,
this time, I do not get an error message and I am able to press next to move on to the
next screen of the wizard.
The next screen of the wizard allows additional features to be selected. In this case, I do
not need to select any additional features so I will press the next button and move onto
the next screen of the wizard.
The next screen is the welcome screen for the Hyper-V configuration part of the wizard.
The welcome screen reminds you that you should identify which network connections you want
to use with Hyper-V. This can always be changed later on if you make the wrong choice.
The next screen of the wizard will ask which network connection you want to use with Hyper-V.
In this case I have two network cards installed on the server. One connected to my local network
and the other connected to the New York network. In this case, I will select the New York network
adapter. This will allow me to create virtual machines and connect them directly to the
New York network. If you are not sure which network connection to select, you can leave
it blank and configure the network connections later on. Later in the course, I will be connecting
this server up to multiple networks, so do not worry too much if you do not understand
what is happening.
On the next screen you can configure if Hyper-V will receive live migrations from other servers.
This is a feature of Hyper-V to allow virtual machines to be migrated from one Hyper-V server
to another Hyper-V server. This can be changed later on so I will leave it on the default
option of ‘not configured’ and move on to the next screen of the wizard.
The next screen of the wizard asks where virtual hard disks and configuration files for the
virtual machines should be stored. In this case I will accept the default locations and
move on.
The next screen will show the settings that I have selected in the wizard. Once I press
install, Hyper-V will be installed on this server. The process generally only takes a
minute or two to complete so I will pause the video and return shortly.
Once the install is complete, notice the wizard is stating that a restart is required to finish
the install, so I will now restart the server to complete the install.
You will notice that before the server is restarted, additional features have been installed.
Also, the server will restart a second time before starting up to the login screen. Let’s
have a look at what is happening.
When Windows is running without Hyper-V, the operating system communicates with the Hardware
Abstraction Layer or HAL to access the hardware. When Hyper-V is installed, the whole process
changes. When Hyper-V is installed, the HAL is replaced by the hypervisor.
The hypervisor is essentially a HAL that provides the same features, but has been extended for
virtualization. You will notice that the OS is a parent partition and the child partitions
are virtual machines. Essentially the operating system and any virtual machines are all going
through the hypervisor to reach the hardware. You can see why two reboots are required in
order to install Hyper-V as a lot of changes need to be made. However, the administrator
won’t notice any difference in Windows Server once the install is complete. Once they are
logged into the operating system, it will work the same regardless of whether Hyper-V
was installed or not.
You can see that the process of installing Hyper-V is quite simple assuming your computer
meets the requirements and virtualization is enabled in the BIOS. In the upcoming videos,
I will look at the features of Hyper-V and how to create and use virtual machines. Until
then, I hope you found this video useful and I would like to thank you for watching.