What is Microsoft Hyper-V?

Virtualisation can be used for different purposes. Cloud computing and container technology work with it, for example. Fortunately, as a user of Windows you won’t be dependent on external - and sometimes very complex - software. With Hyper-V, Windows has installed its own hypervisor. So what does the tool do?

To virtualise hardware, i.e. create a hardware environment that does not have a physical form, you need an intermediary between the physical computer and the virtual machine. This interface is called a hypervisor. The physical host system can be mapped to multiple virtual guest systems (child partitions) that share the host hardware (parent partition). Microsoft has created its own hypervisor, Hyper-V, which is included in the professional versions of Windows 10 or Windows 8. The software is also installed in Windows Server.

Hyper-V gives Windows users the ability to start their own virtual machine. In this virtual machine, a complete hardware infrastructure with RAM, hard disk space, processor power, and other components can be virtualised. A separate operating system runs on this basis, which does not necessarily have to be Windows. It is very popular, for example, to run an open-source distribution of Linux in a virtual machine.

Virtualisation technology can be used in different situations for different needs. Hyper-V is usually used in test environments. In this context, virtualisation has two advantages:

1. Computer environments which are otherwise not accessible can be accessed. For example, instead of setting up your own PC with Linux, you can easily display the Linux operating system in a virtual machine.
2. The virtual machine is self-contained. This means that if you run software that causes a system crash, the physical device is not at risk. Only the virtual machine would need to be reset.

Private users can use Hyper-V, for example, if they want to use software that would not run under their current version of Windows - either because the program requires an older version of the operating system or because only Linux is supported.

Virtualisation via Hyper-V is a great advantage for software developers in particular. Any program they create can be tested under a huge variety of software and hardware conditions. In addition, due to the self-contained nature of the virtual machines, there is no need to worry about faulty code causing damage to their own systems.

Unlike any other virtualisation techniques, Hyper-V has the advantage of being integrated with Windows. Anyone using the Microsoft operating system for PCs or servers can benefit from this close integration. Hyper-V is a type 1 hypervisor, which is also something only few other techniques offer. This means that Hyper-V is based directly on the system hardware. Type 2 hypervisors, on the other hand, must always go through the parent operating system to provide resources.

For Windows users, a very clear advantage is the close connection to the operating system. This can also mean a more cost-effective solution because Hyper-V is often included for free with Windows. Hyper-V can keep up with the competition in terms of its functionality. Users of Hyper-V can expect high performance, as long as they only work with Windows as a guest system. Since admin work is relatively simple, even beginners can benefit from virtualisation via Hyper-V.

Although Hyper-V works very well with Windows, the software reaches its limits with other operating systems. Hyper-V is not designed to run on other systems, and the possible guest systems are very limited. Apart from Windows, only a few selected Linux distributions can run in a virtual machine. For example, if you want to use macOS as a guest system, you have to use an additional product. Unfortunately, a high loss of performance occurs when you run multiple Linux systems at once.