Creating a Virtual Windows Server in Windows 10 with Hyper-V
This Article is a beginner friendly guide for creating a Windows Server 2019 Virtual Machine using Hyper-V. For simplicity, the guide is broken down into subtopics. Additionally the setup of an external switch is also included as a bonus. The guide includes,
Prerequisites for Adding Hyper-V,
Getting a Windows Server 2019 image,
Creating a Windows Server Virtual Machine from Hyper-V Manager,
Adding a Virtual Switch to a Virtual Machine,
and Installation on Windows Server 2019
Prerequisites for Adding Hyper-V
A Windows 10 Enterprise, Pro, or Education installation as a host
You need a Windows 10 Enterprise, Pro, or Education installation as a host because both Hyper-V and joining a domain, are not supported in Windows 10 Home Edition.
64-bit Processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT).
CPU support for VM Monitor Mode Extension (VT-c on Intel CPU s).
Unless you have a fifteen years old CPU, the chances of that being compatible with Hyper-V is pretty good. But you can easily confirm that by running “Msinfo32.exe”(System Information), navigating to the bottom of the ‘System summary’ pane. On the four lines starting with ‘Hyper-V, If there is a no next to ‘Virtualisation Enabled in Firmware’ you can enable it by going into your BIOS settings and turning on ‘support for virtualisation’. But if there is a no next to the other three, unfortunately, you cannot use Hyper-V. Use another virtualisation software like VMware or VirtualBox. For a smooth experience on the virtual machine. In a Hyper-V ready system, System Information summery would be like below.
Minimum of 4 GB memory.
Although the minimum requirement for Hyper-V to run is 4 GB of memory, I would recommend close to 8 GB for smoother operation since the memory needed for Host, Hyper-V, and a running virtual machine instance could easily eat up the 4 GB memory.
Turning on Hyper-V
Now to turn on Hyper-V, type ‘Turn Windows Features On or Off’ on Search Bar in Start and press Enter. Put a check-mark in front of Hyper-V. Make sure all under Hyper-V are selected. It may take a minute to download and you may need to restart the PC to finish adding Hyper-V.
Getting a Windows Server 2019 image
As I said earlier domain creation is a role of a windows server. We will be using a Windows Server 2019 instance as our server.
You can grab a copy for evaluation from here.
Select ‘ISO’ as the file type and click continue. In the next window, you would have to fill in some basic information such as your name, email, etc. In the next window, select your desired language and proceed to download.
Creating a Windows Server Virtual Machine from Hyper-V Manager
Now that you have successfully completed adding Hyper-V, you can use Hyper-V Manager to create Virtual Machines and manage them.
Below are the steps to Create a Virtual Machine Running Windows Server 2019
1.Open Hyper-V Manager and click Right-click on your PC name and hover your mouse onto ‘New’ and then to ‘Virtual Machine’.
2. Click next in the ‘before you begin’ window.
3. Select a name for your Virtual machine and If you do not have enough storage on the C drive or if you wish to have the Virtual Machine stored elsewhere, Select your desired location.
4. Then in the next window select ‘Generation 1’. We select this because this is said to have more support.
5. In the next window select your desired memory to be assigned. It is recommended to have at least 2 GB. I chose 3 GB just to be on the safe end. Make sure to select the ‘use dynamic memory’ option as then your virtual machine would only consume the necessary amount of memory.
6. In the next window, keep the connection as ‘not connected’ because we will create a switch for connection later.
7. Now in the create a virtual hard disk selection option, select your hard disk size. At least 32 GB is needed for a successful installation of server core and since we are using a desktop version at least 4 GB more is needed. To be on the safe side, I am using 50 GB. But since we are creating a dynamically expanding hard disk, the size of the created hard disk initially is much smaller than 50 GB.
8. Now from the ‘Install an operating system from a bootable CD/DVD-ROM’ option, under the ‘Image File’ selection option, select the downloaded ‘ISO’ file and proceed next to view a summary of selected options or click finish.
Creating a Virtual Switch
But before starting and connecting to the virtual machine we should create a switch that allows communication between the host and the virtual machine. There are three types of switches, external, internal, and private. Out of the three, only External switches provide the option to access the physical network to communicate with servers and clients on an external network. It also allows virtual machines on the same Hyper-V server to communicate with each other. So we will be using an external switch for this demonstration.
1.Open Hyper-V Manager and select the Hyper-V host computer name from the tree view.
2. Select Action > Virtual Switch Manager from the menu bar
3. Select ‘External’ and click ‘Create Virtual Switch’
4. Choose a name for your switch and select the network adaptor you desire from the list of physical network adaptors. Make sure you have selected the External Network to be able to select the network adaptor. Leave the others to their defaults and click OK.
5. In the prompting window asking whether to continue, click continue.
Now you have created the virtual switch. To know more about virtual switches in Hyper-V head to ‘https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/get-started/create-a-virtual-switch-for-hyper-v-virtual-machines’
Adding a Virtual Switch to a Virtual Machine
1.Right-click on the created virtual machine and go to Settings. In the tree view, select ‘Add Hardware’. In the data view, select ‘Network Adaptor’ and click ‘Add’.
2. In the following data view, select the newly created virtual switch and OK
Now you can see the newly created virtual machine in the Hyper-V Manager. Right-click on it and click start. Then right-click again on it and click connect.
Installation on Windows Server 2019
Now you will have to install windows server 2019. The installation steps for a Windows Server is pretty similar to a normal Windows operating system installation. So if you are comfortable with a Windows installation, you can skip this part. A thing to note is that I chose the standard Evaluation Desktop Experience.
- Select your desired Language to install and Input Language and click ‘Next’.
2. Click ‘Install now’.
3. Select ‘Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation’.
4. Put a check-mark in the ‘I accept the license terms’ and click ‘Next’.
5. Select ’Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)’.
6. Select the unallocated space and click ‘New’.
7. Click ‘Apply’ to create a drive.
8. Select the Primary partition and click ‘Next’.
9. Wait for the installation to complete.
10. After the installation is complete, you will be prompted to create a password for the administrator account.
11. Then you can proceed to login into the administrator account with that password.
Congratulations! Now you have a Windows Server instance you can experiment with.
