Hyper-V Guest Operating Systems

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Operating systems supported as virtual machines in Microsoft Hyper-V

Core Idea: Hyper-V supports various Windows, Linux, and other operating systems as guest VMs, with different levels of integration features and performance depending on the guest OS and Hyper-V version.

Key Elements

Windows Guest Support

• Windows Server: Full support from Windows Server 2003 R2 to current versions
  • Windows Server 2012 and newer support up to 64 virtual CPUs
  • Older versions typically limited to 1-4 virtual CPUs
• Windows Client: Support from Windows XP SP2 to current versions
  • Windows 7 and newer support up to 4 virtual CPUs
  • Windows 10 supports up to 32 virtual CPUs

Linux Support

• Officially Supported Distributions:
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (10 SP4, 11 SP1-SP3)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (5.5-7.0 and newer)
  • CentOS (5.5-7.5 and newer)
  • Ubuntu (12.04-20.04 and newer)
  • Debian 7.0 and newer
  • Oracle Linux 6.4 and newer
• Linux Integration Services: Provides enhanced functionality
  • Originally released separately, now included in mainstream Linux kernels (3.4+)
  • Microsoft contributed Linux drivers to the Linux community under GPL in 2009

Other Operating Systems

• FreeBSD: Support via partnership between NetApp and Citrix
  • Includes both emulated and paravirtualized modes
  • Integration services available for enhanced performance
• Experimental/Community Support: Various other operating systems may work but aren't officially supported

Enlightened I/O Support

• Operating systems with Enlightened I/O support achieve better performance:
  • Windows Server 2008 and later
  • Windows Vista SP1 and later
  • Linux with 3.4 or later kernel
  • FreeBSD with appropriate drivers

Generation 2 Virtual Machine Support

• Introduced in Windows Server 2012 R2
• Supported operating systems:
  • Windows 8/Windows Server 2012 and newer
  • Linux distributions with UEFI support
  • Requires 64-bit guest operating systems

Additional Connections

• Broader Context: Operating System Virtualization Compatibility (general concepts)
• Applications: Enterprise VM Templates (creating standardized VM images)
• See Also: Enlightened IO (performance optimization technology)

References

1. Microsoft Hyper-V Documentation
2. Linux Integration Services Documentation

#virtualization #guest-os #compatibility #hypervisor

Connections:

Sources:

• From: Hyper-V - Wikipedia