Hyper-V Server

Today, Microsoft announced the availiablity of the free Hyper-V Server.

I quickly downloaded the 1.09GB ISO and began installation. Installation took about 15 minutes in a VM with ~1.5GB memory.

Here are some Hyper-V Server screenshots:

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Hyper-V Server

Intial Configuration Script

Available & Installed Packages

The majority of the installation was the exact same as a Server 2008 install except there is no version/type selection (std, ent, dc/full, core). The text-based initial script enables quick configuration without memorizing the netdom and netsh commands . Further, from the last screenshot, we can see the small number of packages that come with Hyper-V and that only one is installed. This is considerably different from a basic Hyper-V Server Core installation, illustrated below.

Server Core with Hyper-V

Microsoft did a good job of stripping unecessary components as well as making an easy-to-install and easy-to-initialize Hyper-V solution. Thanks!

Links:

http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/default.mspx

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2008/10/01/Bare-metal-hypervisor-is-here_2C00_-along-with-new-training_2C00_-services.aspx