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        Installing Hyper-V and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 on the same server

Section(s): Installation & Deployment, Installation & Deployment
Published on Feb 25, 2009.
Last Modified on Nov 30, 2008.
Last Modified by Robert Larson.
Rating: Not Rated

Installing Hyper-V and Virtual Server on the same physical machine is not recommended.

Installing Hyper-V and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (or any version) on the same physcial server is not a recommended practice. You might ask why?

Hyper-V uses hypervisor technology that requires and abstracts the hardware virtualization support in the processor from the remaining applications and partitons. While you can install Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 in the parent partition of a Hyper-V host, Virtual Server will not see the virtualization processor extensions while the hypervisor is running. This means that Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 would run in emulation mode and drastically impact performance.

If you need to run both products, it is recommended to use separate servers. It is possible to disable the hypervisor and get Virtual Server 2005 to see the virtualization extensions, but it requires a reboot.

About Robert Larson

Robert Larson is the co-author of the Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Resource Kit, and the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Resource kit, both published by Microsoft Press. Robert has over 20 years experience in the engineering and IT field. Currently an architect with Microsoft Consulting Services, Robert focuses on helping customers design and deploy optimized data center and server infrastructures using physical and virtual approaches. Robert has been working with various virtualization technologies for over 4 years and is a regular speaker at Microsoft TechEd conferences in the US and Europe on the Microsoft virtualization stack. Robert has also written whitepapers and delivered webcasts on virtualization technologies. You can visit Robert's blog