Installing and configuring anti-virus for the host and virtual machines

This is one of the most common discussions with Hyper-V. Lots of IT professionals struggle with the option of whether or not to install Anti-Virus (AV) on the host and the VMs.

Security is the prime concern in all scenarios, and as a Hyper-V administrator, you need to make sure that there are no compromises on your servers, either physical or virtual. This recipe will show you first how to configure the Hyper-V exceptions, when using an AV system in the parent partition, and then discuss when and where the AV is necessary, in the How it works section.

Getting ready

Due to the vast number of anti-virus products, this recipe will only focus on the configurations that have to be done and not how to actually do them. Make sure that you are familiar with your AV settings so that you are able to apply the same configuration demonstrated in the AV itself.

Before you begin, make sure that your AV software supports Windows Server...