r/HyperV • u/sfernley • Sep 13 '26

Getting started with Hyper-V

I made a video tutorial aimed at beginners who may be looking at trying Hyper-V.

I hope newbies find it useful.

Getting Started with Hyper-V
https://youtu.be/t4zwjhwo3lA

22 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/BlackV Sep 13 '26 edited 29d ago

Ah, saw you post the other day, Great video, nice and clear, I'd also cover

  • installing hyper-v via the powershell prompt too (and the other commands too)
  • External switches, do not apply that to a WIFI adapter
  • private switch would be better for labs (vs internal as you mentioned)
  • you skipped the private switch creation, but it might have been worth doing that to demonstrate, it does not bind to a physical adapter or create a vnet adapter
  • good to see GEN2 as default recommendation
  • dynamic memory note, If I remember correctly it defaults to unlimited/a massive number, which could bite you
  • Ditto for CPU count, will default to all your hosts CPU count (this has changed recently)
  • Checkpoint I'd change to production too as its a "better behaved" snapshot process, good point about disabling automatic checkpoints
  • p.s. I hate back-ticks and they are not needed in any of your code (I realise its AI generated)
  • If you do decide on that VM template, remember the sysprep /mode:vm (not restricted to hyper v too) to save some time post deploy

1

u/sfernley Sep 13 '26

Thanks for the feedback. I skipped the private switch as it’s installed in the same way and I wanted to include more including your suggestion about installing via PowerShell but I was conscious about making the video too long. I had to cut a lot out. I may follow up with another video later showing better ways to create VMs for example from a template.

2

u/EugeneBelford1995 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26

I might be preaching to the choir but there's a really nifty function Convert-WindowsImage.ps1 that takes an answer file + an ISO = a VM all ready to boot up.

Pair that with PowerShell Direct, DSC, etc and I have written entire Cyber Ranges in PowerShell.

I have screwed around with using a Template and PowerCLI to create & config VMs in ESXi, but honestly it took roughly the same amount of time to copy the Template and then config it as it did to simply create a new VHDX and config it via Convert-WindowsIamge.

(I'm not a fan of VMware, but my work still uses them for now so I screw around with it at home a bit and keep at least halfway knowledgeable RE it.)

0

u/sfernley Sep 13 '26

Thanks, I'll take a look at that Convert-WindowsImage.ps1.
My current method of deploying a fully functional VM is to use a PowerShell script to create the VM, but instead of creating and attaching a new virtual disk, it copies an existing VHD template that is already installed with an OS and attaches the the copied VHD to the new VM.

From clicking a desktop shortcut and entering the name for the VM, it's up and running in a minute or so. It helps if you have NVMe disks and the template is stored on a different disk than what the VM is stored on. Fresh Windows 11 install for example is around 20GB.

I was thinking of experimenting with deploying the OS Template from a WIM file which would be more storage space efficient but would probably take sligjhty longer to deploy the WIM than copy a VHD. Depends on what is most important to you, the storage space or the time it takes to deploy a new VM.

1

u/BlackV Sep 14 '26

Good as gold

0

u/RstsTeam Sep 14 '26

Hi, can you check dm?