Hyper-V - Migrating VS 2K5 R2 SP1 XP VMs to Hyper-V

There is a little bit of a process to get that XP Pro VM from Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 onto Hyper-V and get the Hyper-V Integration Services installed.

1. Install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Reboot required).
2. Uninstall VS 2K5 R2 SP1 VM Additions.
   
   
3. Reboot.
4. Install Hyper-V Integration Services.
1. Cancel the New Hardware Found dialogues.
2. Update the HAL.
   
   
3. Reboot.
   
4. Installation of Integration Services runs as soon as the user logs on.
5. Cancel any New Hardware Found dialogues as they will hang up the post reboot install.
6. One final reboot.
   

When working with the VMs via the Hyper-V management console, one needs to CTRL+ALT+End to send the CTRL+ALT+DLTE key stroke pattern.

There are a few others, but once the Integration Services are installed and configured, things go pretty smooth.

So far, with just a single core assigned to each VM running on the 1U Xeon X3230 based server we are noticing a pretty good performance increase. The OS is Server 2008 x64 Standard Core with Hyper-V RC0 installed and configured.

The out of the box Hyper-V would not work with the Intel NICs in this particular box. We needed to update right away.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

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