Welcome to ITFreeTraining. In this video I will look the hardware requirements to run
Hyper-V. Hyper-V being Microsoft’s virtualization solution allowing the administrator to create
virtual machines. This video will allow you to choose the right hardware to run Hyper-V.
In order to start using Hyper-V, your computer needs to meet a few hardware requirements.
The requirements that I will look at are the minimum requirements. Later in the video,
I will look at some of the optional hardware requirements.
First you need a 64-bit CPU that supports hardware assisted virtualization. For Intel
this is a CPU with Intel-VT, and for AMD a CPU with AMD-V.
The CPU also needs to support Hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention. On the Intel CPU,
this is referred to as eXecute Disabled and for AMD’s CPU it is referred to as No eXecute.
The next requirement is that the BIOS supports virtualization. This may mean you need to
go into the BIOS and enable it. If the option is missing, you may need to upgrade the BIOS
firmware.
Hardware assisted vitalization was added to Intel and AMD CPUs in 2006. Data execution
Prevention was added before this. Thus, all modern featured CPUs will support these requirements.
If you purchase a specialized CPU, for example an ultra-low powered CPU, it may not support
these features. If you want to test your system, there is free test tool available called SecureAble.
There is also test software available from Intel, AMD and Microsoft; however SecureAble
is a free, simple tool that does not required that it be installed. You can also attempt
to install the Hyper-V role to check if the computer meets the hardware requirements.
The installation will perform the required checks on the system and the role will not
be installed if the system does not meet all the requirements.
If you are purchasing an older system or have and old system you are planning to use, you
can check online to see if it meets the features required. Both Intel and AMD have product
pages that you can check your CPU with.
To demonstrate these options, I will open Internet Explorer and then open the web site
for SecurAble. Once open, I will press the button “download now” and then select
the option ‘run’. You can see that the application will run without requiring any
installing to be performed.
You can see this tool tells you if your system meets the 3 requirements for Hyper-V. The
first value, Bit Length, informs you if the CPU is 32bit or 64bit. 64bit is required for
Hyper V. The next value tells you if the system supports DEP or not, in this case it does,
which is required to run Hyper-V. The last value tells you if hardware virtualization
is supported. In this case, hardware virtualization is not available. In this case, I know the
CPU does support hardware virtualization. It is most likely that hardware virtualization
it is not enabled in the BIOS or a BIOS update is required in order to enable hardware virtualization.
This tool is good if you want to quickly test a system that is up and running. If you want
to check a particular CPU for these requirements, this can be done on Intel’s Ark site. If
I open this web site, this site allows Intel products to be viewed and compared.
The option that I want is the advanced features search. To access this, I will select any
of the CPUs on the main page, in this case the option for High End Desktop Processors.
Once open, I will select the option on the far right, feature filter.
As I selected high end desktop processors, the filtering is configured for the high end
desktop processors, so I will clear this option. Next, I will scroll down and select the option
for 64bit CPU. Once selected, I will scroll up and select the option for virtualization
and set it to no.
Now when I scroll up and press search, this will show me all the CPUs that are 64bit and do
not support virtualization. You can see there are 167 CPUs listed. At the top are the Intel
Pentium processors which are the low power CPUs. Below this are the ATOM CPUs which are
also low power. Below this, more low powered CPUs.
If I now change the virtualization setting to yes and run the search again, notice now
996 products match the search. So, more than likely, if you have a 64bit CPU that is not
low power, it will support Hyper-V if it was made after 2007.
I will now open the AMD product page. At the main screen, I will select the language of
United States. On the main screen, you have the option to look at notebook processors,
desktop processors and server processors. In this case, I will select the option for
Desktop Processors.
There is no option on this screen for 64bit CPUs. AMD released its first 64bit CPU back
in 2003, so there is a good chance if you have an AMD CPU it is 64bit. However, if you
are not sure, you should check.
If I select the option of virtualization and set it to no, notice the search results list
96 CPU’s. These CPUs are mostly the X2 and earlier CPUs released before 2008.
If I now clear the filter and change the virtualization setting to yes, when the search is run again,
there are 221 products that match. Not as many as with the Intel; however, still a large
number of products that support virtualization.
If you are planning to buy a CPU, any CPU manufactured after 2008 should be fine as
long as it is fully featured, for example not a low powered one. If you are not sure,
check on these web sites to make sure it meets the requirements.
The next list of requirements that I will look at are the optional requirements. The
first is Second Level address Translation otherwise known as SLAT. This is referred
to as Nested Page Table on Intel and Extended Page Table on AMD. If your CPU meets these
requirements, Hyper-V will perform better but it is not required.
For Windows Server 2012, SLAT is not required unless you are running RemoteFX. RemoteFX
allows 3D graphics to be rendered using the graphics card in the server and then sent
to the client as a bitmap.
If you are running Hyper-V on Windows 8, you will require SLAT. Hyper-V will not install
on Windows 8 without SLAT support. SLAT was first introduced by AMD in 2007 and Intel
followed up with support after that. So, like the previous CPU requirements, all modern
featured CPUs should support this.
If you want to check if your system meets these requirements, open a command prompt
and run the command SystemInfo. The command takes a moment to collect all the data from
the system, but once complete, notice at the end the entry “Second Level Address Translation”
is set to yes. This means this system supports SLAT.
The next requirement I will look at is for RemoteFX. This requires DirectX 11 and a WDDM
1.2 compatible driver. If your thin clients require 3D graphics, RemoteFX is a good way
to use the 3D graphics card on your server to provide 3D graphics to the clients. RemoteFX
also supports the use of multiple graphics cards, however if you add a 2nd or 3rd graphics
card, they need to be identical to the first one.
To test if your graphics card meets this requirement, run DXDiag from the start menu. On the system
tab, you will notice that the version of DirectX listed is 11. This is required for Windows
Server 2012. In Windows Server 2008, you do not require DirectX 11, you only need DirectX
9c or DirectX 10. However, you may find that fewer video cards are supported.
If I now select the first display tab, on the far right hand side is the WDDM driver
model. 1.2 is required for RemoteFX, in this case 1.3 is installed which meets the requirements.
So this server is able to run RemoteFX if required.
This covers the basic hardware requirements for Hyper-V. In upcoming videos, I will look
at some of the limitations of Hyper-V and start installing and using Hyper-V. I hope
to see you in those videos. Until then, thanks for watching.