How to Create a New Virtual Machine with Hyper-V

Posted on July 7th, 2009 by Gosia Grabowska

Hyper-V TrainingToday is a very exciting day here at Train Signal — our Hyper-V Training is now available!

To celebrate the release I’m going to show you how to create a new virtual machine using Hyper-V and Server 2008.

Last week I did an installation walk-through to show you just how easy installing Hyper-V on your Server 2008 really is. Today we’ll go a step further and create our very first virtual machine.

Don’t worry, this part is easy too — follow my step-by-step instructions and you will have your virtual machine in no time.

Create a Virtual Machine with Hyper-V & Server 2008

1. To start, login to your Server where Hyper-V is installed and open up Server Manager.

 
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2. Next, click on New in the right column.

 
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3. A small pop-up window should show up with three options:

  • Virtual Machine…
  • Hard Disk…
  • Floppy Disk…

Go ahead and select Virtual Machine.

 
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4. The New Virtual Machine Wizard window should pop up.  At this point you have the option to click Finish if you want to create a virtual machine that is configured with default values per Microsoft. 

I’m going to show you how to select your own options, so instead we are going to click Next.

 
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5. In the next window we need to specify a name for our virtual machine. In this example, I’m going to use the name “BaseInstallation2K8″. 

We also need to specify the location where we are going to store our virtual machine. Now keep in mind that if you are going to use the snapshot feature, you will need enough space to store your virtual machine together with your snapshots. 

I would also not recommend storing it on your C:\.  The choice is yours, however, and in this example we are going to select our G:\ drive where there is plenty of space for the VM as well as multiple snapshots. 

After you’ve made your selection, click Next.

 
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6. On this screen we need to assign memory for our new Virtual Machine. Please note that this memory will be deducted from your physical machine’s memory so make sure to leave some memory for your server to operate on. 

I’m going to leave the default of 512MB and click Next.

 
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7. Now we need to select the type of connection we want for this machine.  As you can see the default option is “Not Connected”. 

There is another option that we have — this option was created when we installed our Hyper-V — “NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller – Virtual Network”. 

Let’s select the virtual network and click Next.

 
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8. Next we’re going to create our virtual hard disk. 

Make sure the name, location and size is correct and let’s leave the defaults for now. When ready click Next.

 
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9. And finally we have a few options for installing an Operating System:

  • we can install an OS later
  • boot from a cd/DVD-ROM or .ISO file
  • boot from floppy disk
  • or install it from a network

In our example we have created an .ISO image file and we are going to select it for our OS.  Once you have made your selection, click Next.

 
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10. Double check your summary window before clicking Finish. We will also select the check mark next to “Start the virtual machine after it is created” and then hit Finish.

 
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Congrats! Your first virtual Machine in Hyper-V has been created.  Now, wasn’t that easy?

 
P.S. If you speak German, take a look at a recent review of our Hyper-V Training.

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