I finally got around to installing Hyper-V on Server 2008 Core at home. I’m building a lab to do some work on SCCM 2007 SP1 and R2 and I figured I rebuild my Vista desktop with Core so I could provision more RAM for my VM’s.
My desktop is a 4GB RAM "home build" that I got on Komplett back in September 2006. Imagine trying to install ESX on that? LOL. One of the great perks of Hyper-V is that it will support anything that Windows Server 2008 can install on.
Here’s what I did to get going:
- Enabled CPU virtualisation assistance and DEP in the BIOS.
- Installed Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64 (Core Installation). This takes no time at all. It was using about 6GB of disk and around 500MB of RAM.
- Changed the regional settings: I am in Ireland but my wireless keyboard is USA: control intl.cpl.
- Determined the NIC ID (I have a few in it): netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces.
- Set the IP address for NIC 2: netsh interface ipv4 set address name="2" source=static address=192.168.1.3 mask=255.255.255.0 gateway=192.168.1.1.
- Set the DNS: netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name="2" address=192.168.1.2 index=1.
- Renamed my server: netdom renamecomputer %computername% /NewName:HyperSvr1.
- Rebooted for that to take effect: shutdown /r /t 0.
- Joined it to my SBS domain: netdom join %computername% /domain:mydomain.local /userd:administrator /passwordd:*.
- Rebooted for that to take effect: shutdown /r /t 0.
- Copied CoreConfigurator onto the Core server and configured any users, groups, enabled RDP, firewall settings that I needed.
- Downloaded and copied the Hyper-V update onto the server.
- Installed the Hyper-V update: wusa.exe Windows6.0-KB950050-x64.msu.
- Installed the Hyper-V role: start /w ocsetup.exe Microsoft-Hyper-V.
- Rebooted when prompted.
- Downloaded and installed Remote Management for Windows Vista. Using this I can manage my headless Core "server" from my laptop and do all my lab work in a more comfortable location.