Fall Creators Update Feature Focus: Hyper-V

Fall Creators Update Feature Focus: Hyper-V

Microsoft’s virutalization solution, Hyper-V, picks up several important improvements in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

Hyper-V is a sophisticated virtualization solution that allows you to run one or more other operating systems—Windows, Linux, whatever—in virtual machines (VMs) on top of the version of Windows 10 that is installed natively, or locally, on your PC. Hyper-V is common to both Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, but on the former it is typically used by developers to test their solutions in different OS versions or environments. Hyper-V requires Windows 10 Pro or better, and specific hardware components, and it is not enabled by default.

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In the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Hyper-V is being improved with several new features. Each is designed to make it easier for developers to focus on what they’re doing and not on VM creation or maintenance.

Virtual machine gallery. Now, when you use the Quick Create wizard—which was added in the previous version of Windows 10 and simplifies new VM creation—Hyper-V will display a gallery of online virtual machines from which you can choose. This way you can get up and running quickly, even if you don’t have a locally-available ISO file, image, or other source.

Automatic checkpoints. Like other virtualization solutions, Hyper-V supports a feature called checkpoints, which let you undo mistakes or configuration changes and “go back in time” to the point where the checkpoint was made. In the Fall Creators Update, Hyper-V now automatically creators checkpoints for you, so can always reverse a mistake or configuration change in the VM.

Virtual battery support. Hyper-V will now pass through the physical machine’s battery status to the VM if you enable this feature. (This lets you create a VM that works like a laptop or other portable PC.) To do so, you need to create the VM using a PowerShell cmdlet, New-VM, and not via Hyper-V Manager. Just add the flag “-Prerelease” to the cmdlet. You can find out more about New-VM from the Windows IT Center.

VM sharing. The Virtual Machine Connection window in which VMs run now sports a Share icon in the toolbar that will compress the VM into a compressed VM Zip (.vmcz) file so that you can more easily share it with others (or just to another machine). To add this VM to a new PC, just double-click it: Hyper-V Manger will launch and import it.

 

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Conversation 9 comments

  • André Kittler

    24 July, 2017 - 10:51 am

    <p>Really nice, may be the #2 reason to update ASAP (after one drive).</p><p>Did they say anything about the performance impact of automatic checkpoints?</p>

  • DaveHelps

    Premium Member
    24 July, 2017 - 12:07 pm

    <p>Interesting. Would it be fair to say that VM sharing is a basic implementation of VM templates?</p><p><br></p><p>If I understand correctly, I could configure a Windows VM, sysprep it, "share" it, and when re-importing choose to create a new ID… if so: nice :)</p>

  • Brian Devins

    24 July, 2017 - 12:47 pm

    <p>I don't suppose Hyper-V is any good at playing games yet? I keep a WinXP VM in an old version of VMWare because it supports 3D acceleration and supports my i7 CPU virtualization acceleration. VMWare and VirtualBox work great with 10-year-old games, but Hyper-V has never been any good at it.</p>

    • Waethorn

      24 July, 2017 - 2:57 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#152177"><em>In reply to demodulated:</em></a></blockquote><p>No, and it won't ever be.</p>

  • bbold

    24 July, 2017 - 1:07 pm

    <p>Noticed a typo.. "Hyper-V now automatically creators checkpoints for you, so can always reverse a mistake or configuration change in the VM." Should read 'automatically creates.'</p><p>This is great news, thanks for sharing.</p>

  • Sandy

    24 July, 2017 - 7:45 pm

    <p>A second typo right at the end (a missing 2nd A in 'Manager'): "Hyper-V Manger will launch and import it."</p><p><br></p><p>Also, while word-wrapping is working again on Premium Comments, clicking over to the Standard Comments tab I see it's broken there.</p>

  • gumbyjunior1

    26 July, 2017 - 10:53 am

    <p>This is good.</p><p>I would be looking forward to what Microsoft would offerup for VM gallery to download. I would hope to assume that it would be some same soft of offering that they would have in Azure.</p>

  • slomike1

    Premium Member
    19 October, 2017 - 11:18 am

    <p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">"automatically creators checkpoints" in Automatic Checkpoints paragraph.</span></p>

  • naania1432

    29 November, 2017 - 5:55 am

    <p>Good update. I love using Hyper V software is the update released globally or regionally? <a href="https://getappvalley.com/&quot; target="_blank">Appvalley</a></p>

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