Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook: To master the administration of Windows Server Hyper-V, this is the book you need. With over 50 useful recipes, plus handy tips and tricks, it helps you handle virtualization using best practice principles.

After downloading and installing the necessary tools as explained in the Getting ready section, install the utility based on your processor.

For AMD processors, the AMD-V System Compatibility Check provides the results for AMD processors, if it supports Hyper-V, as shown in the following screenshot:

If you have an Intel processor, after the Intel Processor Identification Utility install, you will see three tabs once you run it.

Select the first tab named Frequency Test to show the highest frequency and speed that your processor can handle.

Select the second tab named CPU Technologies and check the results for the technologies supported by the processor model such as Virtualization technology, Hyper-Threading and other technologies.

Then, select the CPUI Data tab to see information such as the Processor type, Family model, Cache sizes, and Data Execution Prevention (Execute Disable Bit).

For Intel processors, the result will be similar to the one shown in the following screenshot:

To verify whether the processor supports Second-Level Address Translation (SLAT) or not, use the free tool called Coreinfo.

After its download, copy it to the chosen directory, then access it through the command prompt and run the command coreinfo –v.

In the following screenshot, you can see an example of a computer running with an AMD processor, the SLAT support, the Hypervisor support, and it shows that the Hypervisor is not installed.

With these steps, you have identified whether the computer you want to install Hyper-V on has all its prerequisites.

On the Start Screen select Server Manager.

In the Server Manager Dashboard, click on Add roles and features.

In the Add Roles and Feature Wizard, click on Next three times.

On the next screen, Server Roles page, select Hyper-V, as shown in the next screenshot, and click on Next three times.

In the Virtual Switches window, select the network adapter you want to use on Hyper-V. You can add, remove, and modify the virtual switches after the Hyper-V installation through Hyper-V Manager.

On the Virtual Machine Migration page, check the Allow this server to send and receive live migration of virtual machines option if you want to enable live migration requests, then click on Next.

In the last Hyper-V installation page called Default Stores, specify the default location for virtual disks and virtual machine configuration files, click on Next and then Install to start the installation process.

Reboot the server after the installation.

After the DVD boot process in the first screen, select your language, time and current format, keyboard or input method, and click on Next.

On the second screen, click on Install now and installation will automatically continue. If prompted, add the Windows Product Key and click on Next again.

Select the operating system to be installed and then click on Next.

In order to install Windows Server 2012, you will have to accept the license terms. Select the option I accept the license terms and click on Next.

For a new installation, select the option Custom: Install Windows only (Advanced), as shown in the following screenshot. The upgrade option for this version has been disabled.

In the Where do you want to install Windows screen, select the hard drive you want to install Windows Server and click on Next. For advanced driver options click on Drive options (advanced).

If you have an external storage device or a hard drive that needs a driver to be loaded, click on Load Driver, as shown in the next image, and install the proper drivers. Click on Next.

At this point, you need to wait for the installation to be completed. It can take from 10 to 30 minutes, based on your hardware.

When it finishes, you will see the login screen, asking you to provide the username and password. The default user is Administrator with a blank password. By default, Windows creates a blank administrator password. For the first login, the system prompts you to insert a password.

To change the domain/workgroup settings, press 1.

Press D for domain or W for workgroup.

Specify the domain or workgroup name, the necessary username and the password, and press Enter.

To change the computer name, press 2 and specify the new computer name.

Select Yes to restart the computer.

To add a local administrator, press 3.

Enter the account to join the local administrators group and type the user password.

To configure the remote management, press 4.

Select one of the following options:

To change Windows update settings:

To download and install updates:

To enable remote desktop:

To configure network settings:

To change the date and time, press 9 and a graphical interface will show up with the date and time settings to be configured.

To restart and shut down the server:

After these configurations using sconfig and with reduced command line interaction, your server will be ready for the production environment.

From the Server Core command line, type PowerShell to load PowerShell.

To identify the index number that need to be used in order to enable the graphical interface, type the following command line, where D:\ is the path for the Windows Server installation DVD drive.

Get-WindowsImage –ImagePath D:\Sources\Install.wim

A list with the index number will be displayed, as shown in the following screenshot. Make a note of the number of the type of Windows Installation you want to enable in the next step. In this demonstration, the index number 2 will be used.

Create a new temporary folder to mount the WIM file with the following command:

New-Item C:\Sources –Type Directory

To mount the image file in the directory created in the previous step, type the following command by specifying the index number obtained in step 3.

Mount-WindowsImage –ImagePath D:\Sources\Install.wim –path C:\Sources –Index 2 -ReadyOnly

With the mounted image, type the following command to enable the Server Graphical Management Tool and the Infrastructure option.

Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra –Source C:\Sources\Windows\Winsxs

Restart the server and wait for the feature to be configured. It will take a couple of minutes.

To enable the full graphical interface, open Server Manager by typing servermanager.exe.

In the Server manager dashboard, click on Add roles and features.

In the Add Roles and Features Wizard, click on Next four times.

In Features, expand User Interfaces and Infrastructure, select the option Server Graphical Shell as shown in the following screenshot, and click on Next:

To complete the installation, in the Confirm installation selections page, click on Install.

Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell

After the setup, you need to restart the server. You can check the Restart each destination server automatically if required option to automatically restart the server.

Having enabled the GUI, we can now see how to uninstall the GUI from the full server installation. In the Server Manager window, click on Manage and then Remove Roles and Features.

In the Before You Begin screen, click on Next four times.

Then, in Features, clear the check box for the Server Graphical Shell option and click on Next.

Confirm the uninstallation by clicking on Remove and wait for the server to be restarted.

First, you need to make sure the Windows Server post installation settings were completed. Before we start the Hyper-V post configuration, let's list the Windows Server post installation settings that you might need to change:

To guide you through the post configurations, the Windows setup opens the Server Manager tool during the first login, with some settings from the mentioned list for quick access and setup.

To see the list, click on Local Server in the pane on the left-hand side in Server Manager, as shown in the following screenshot:

Using the list provided by Server Manager, you can make sure that your server is ready to be used with all the common post-installation settings. Select the components you want to change by clicking on the hyperlink in front of them and follow the configuration steps.

However, some other interesting settings are not provided by the Server Manager list because they are optional, but some of them you might want to consider are as follows:

Now that your Windows Server is ready to go, you can open Hyper-V and change its default settings, if needed.

To open the Hyper-V settings, open the Hyper-V Manager tool and then click on Hyper-V Settings column on the right-hand side.

You'll then see the Hyper-V Settings window as you can see in the following screenshot:

Hyper-V Settings allow you to manage the Hyper-V default settings divided in 10 components. To change the virtual hard disk's default location, click on Virtual Hard Disks.

To modify the default virtual machine location, click on Virtual Machines and specify the new location.

To manage and enable the Remote FX feature select Physical GPUs.

To allow the Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA) spanning, select Numa Spanning.

To enable and change the default values of virtual machine movement settings such as limits and networks that will be used, select Live Migrations, as shown in the following screenshot:

To change the maximum number of simultaneous storage migrations, click on Storage Migrations.

To set up your server as a replica server and change its configuration, click on Replication Configuration.

The next settings—Keyboard,Mouse Release Key, and Reset Check Boxes—can be changed as well, if needed. Change the settings that you want wherever necessary. After that, your Hyper-V Server will be ready with the specific server settings based on your needs.