I'm looking for some more information on optimal configuration of the bios for a HP BL685 G7 with 4x AMD 6276 processors and 512GB of RAM for running Hyper-V.

I've been researching and looking into all the options based on various recommendations around the web. Just not 100% of them:

• HP Power Regulator = HP Static High Performance Mode
• Memory Interleaving = No Interleaving
• Minimum Processor Idle Power State = No C-states
• Hardware Prefetch training on Software Prefetch = Enabled ??
• DRAM Prefetch on CPU Request = Enabled ??
• DRAM Prefetch on I/O Request = Enabled ??
• Node Interleaving = Disabled
• HPC Optimization Mode = Enabled ??

It looks like there is a problem with the KB2920189 update.

When trying to install it via Windows Update on some servers, they all fails the installation of this update - they are all running 2012 R2 inside generation 2 Hyper-V machines.

Has this update been tested with the UEFI implementation inside Hyper-V?

Hey guys/girls,

I have never had this happen before, but now it has happened twice.

I have installed a new 2012r2 OS, then start up PS, configure adapters, then create a team.  After that I installed Hyper-V role and restarted the server.  Log back in, and my team has disappeared, its actually hidden.  Not only that, but I had initially renamed my network adapters for readability, these also have gone missing (hidden), and new network adapters have been created with the default names.

I cannot rename or use the same IP address on the new adapter, because it is still "in use".  I cannot see or delete the original adapters because they are hidden.

I am using server datacentre core, so I cannot do the usual show hidden devices and start up dev management.  I am restricted to CMD and PowerShell consoles.

I can see the hidden adapters when digging into wmi, and or using the "Device Management PowerShell Cmdlets", however I still cannot delete them..

I have done the above method many times prior, but only now is this starting to happen.

clues?

I have reported an issue to my Hyper-V hosting provider where I see a uncommon behaviour on my Hyper-V guest even when freshly deployed.

The Hyper-V Host system is Windows 2012 (assumingly Datacenter, clustered), the guest machine is a Generation 1 Windows 2012 R2, fully patched. Dynamic RAM is configured according to the Hyper-V Server provider.

The problem I see:

In my business environment (Windows 2012 R2 Host, Windows 2012 (R2) guests, with dynamic memory configured, aswell as in my testlab (Windows 10 CTP b10240 Host, Windows 2012 R2 guest generation 2) this problem does not occour.

After I have reported this to the Server provider, it now also occours in my Testlab. So it seems that a Windows Update is responsible for the problem.

Summary:

- RAM allocation in the taskmanager in the guest machine does not reflect the usage of the guest machine

- system performance incl. Windows UI is degraded in the guest OS, like it really would suffer full RAM, start swapping etc.

- this was not an issue before some days in my testlab, but now behaves the same. (all updates applied on the host, no updates applied on the guest)

- it does not matter if the guest OS is fully patched or not, it will show the same issue at the moment.

Evidence:
Normal behaviour of RAM consumption / allocation with Hyper-V dynamic RAM enabled on the Host (testlab, fresh installed machine, no updates on guest OS). The same situation exists in our productive environment Windows 2012 R2 Host, clustered but the hosts are not fully patched, yet.

http://imageshack.com/a/img909/5853/7ABr0Z.png (dynamic RAM enabled)
http://imageshack.com/a/img540/1921/9QDhAB.png (dynamic RAM disabled)

current behaviour of RAM consumption / allocation with Hyper-V dynamic RAM enabled on the Host (testlab, fresh installed machine, no updates on guest OS).

http://imageshack.com/a/img673/7048/K4Pgc2.png

current behaviour of RAM consumption / allocation with Hyper-V dynamic RAM enabled on the Host (Hosting provider, fresh installed machine, fully patched, incl. optional updates)

http://imageshack.com/a/img661/2030/xlBvZO.png

Because it is evident that the behaviour changed in the last few days, I hope this will raise awareness at Microsoft and hopefully help to identify the issue, moreover as this affects Hyper-V guests across plaforms.

What do you think?

cheers,

Karl

MCP Windows Server, MCSA Windows 2008 / 2012, MCITP Hyper-V SCCM

Can I run a windows OS such as windows 7 or windows 8 off a hyper-v server, as a desktop. I would like to deploy windows desktops to different locations at home.

Also, if there is hardware connected physically to the server, is that hardware accessible to all the instances of the windows desktops - I am thinking webcams and speakers.  If I had as example 4 desktop instances running, would all 4 be able to access a single webcam physically connected to the server and would all 4 have the sound outputted to speakers physically connected to the server?

Hello,

I currently have 2 host servers and replication is working fine between them.   The customer would like a cheap offsite storage solution that would allow them to easily transport a hard drive backup offsite once per week.

I was wondering if we could extend replication to a PC with a toaster/drop in external drive.  The VHDx files would get copied there.   My concern is that when they swap out the drives - what will happen - is there a way around issues from that?

Hi...you will have to excuse my ignorance as I am very new to hyper-v. I am waiting for my Windows 10 upgrade next week so that I can have a play with it.

In the mean time, I was wondering. I have heard of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, and that it is free. This got me wondering... I spend a lot of time in VirtualBox and VMWare Player experimenting with different operating systems (usually unix or Windows Previews), unfortunately, my computer runs an i3-2350m and 8GB RAM, so it is quite slow for things like virtualbox. I am learning how to develop web applications, and I do a fair amount of dabbling in C# and Java too, so a virtual machine would be awesome to do development work in. I am starting a 4 year masters degree at university in October in Computer Science, so I am guessing that access to making and using virtual machines will be helpful. I can then experiment with software without worrying that it will mess my main installation of Windows up, one that has such strange hardware that I spend half a day installing drivers and software after a fresh windows install...

Cutting to the chase... my question is this: How good would Hyper-V server standalone be for the host operating system of my main computer. I could then (if there is a GUI that allows me access to the client OS from the console machine, rather than over the network) install a set of virtual machines to do my work in. If something messes up, using the disk differencing feature (I guess this might work), I can just delete the instance of the guest operating system and then recreate it. 

Basically, this should work like dual booting several operating systems on a computer, but instead of having them all accessible via one bootloader such as GRUB, I have each of my operating systems as a single OS that I run on Hyper V. The disk differencing feature seems a very good idea if I wanted multiple instances of a Windows 7 install for example. I only have access to a single 600GB SSHD, and I don't want to spend money on upgrading hardware just to do what I would want...if it is the case, I will find another solution elsewhere. This is basically just a hypothetical question by a dunce who has never had the opportunity to use and therefore has no understanding of Hyper-V. I know how to use stuff like VMWare and Virtualbox, and that they are 2nd level hypervisors and Hyper-V is 1st level so is closer to the hardware or whatever, but apart from that.

I probably know the answer is "this is not what you are looking for" or "Hyper V server will not do this" or "it will run horribly", or whatever, but I just want to know what your opinion of this, or if you have a better solution.

I just want to have the best solution to running several operating system instances (probably all Windows 7 or Windows 10, with the odd OpenBSD in the mix) on my main laptop without having to mess around with bootloaders, as they are more hassle than what they are worth if I am going to have an OS running for only a week or so before destroying it. My laptop severely struggles to run a virtual machine of Windows 7 in VirtualBox on a host running Windows 7...so you now have an idea of why I am making this so complicated for myself.

Basically: will hyper-v server 2008 r2 run well on my laptop as the main OS, and could I then install virtual machines inside this hyper-v install and use them like you would hyper-v on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10?

Thanks for helping an 18 year old idiot out ;) sorry if I waffled. 

I have couple of VMs Server 2012 R2 RTM on Hyper-v Host running the same OS.

All machines including host and VM that is not in domain have an error in Windowsupdate.log:

AU WARNING: Failed to get Network Cost info from NLM, assuming network is NOT metered, error = 0x80240037

FW and UAC are off on all. There are posts on web discussing the same error but most of them connect this to WSUS or Config Manager. And it is clear because we are touching Windowsupdate.log when troubleshooting WSUS. And because WSUS on 2012 is BUGGY this error confuses too.

Finally, as mentioned earlier I deployed NEW server 2012 not from SYSPREP and did not place it to the domain. Updated the machine from MS update. Everything is OK beside the same error about COST :).

So now it is clear it has nothing to do with WSUS or Configuration manager. It indicates to some Network issue. But there is no clear answer. Some suggest just to ignore the error if everything is OK. But I would like to have a clean log. And it is just interesting what could cause the problem. Is it Hyper-V stuff or Server 2012 itself. Anyway I guess I am doing right by posting a question on HV forum since here are people that should know 2012 .

Thanks.

see the log below

2013-12-16 20:32:03:610  752 b44 Setup SelfUpdate check completed.  SelfUpdate is NOT required.
2013-12-16 20:32:04:047  752 b44 PT +++++++++++  PT: Synchronizing server updates  +++++++++++
2013-12-16 20:32:04:047  752 b44 PT   + ServiceId = {9482F4B4-E343-43B6-B170-9A65BC822C77}, Server URL =https://fe2.update.microsoft.com/v6/ClientWebService/client.asmx
2013-12-16 20:32:04:047  752 b44 Agent Reading cached app categories using lifetime 604800 seconds
2013-12-16 20:32:04:047  752 b44 Agent Read 1 cached app categories
2013-12-16 20:32:05:016  752 b44 PT   + SyncUpdates round trips: 2
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 b44 Agent   * Found 0 updates and 14 categories in search; evaluated appl. rules of 449 out of 701 deployed entities
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 b44 Agent *********
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 b44 Agent **  END  **  Agent: Finding updates [CallerId = AutomaticUpdates  Id = 2]
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 b44 Agent *************
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 b44 IdleTmr WU operation (CSearchCall::Init ID 2, operation # 20) stopped; does use network; is not at background priority
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 b44 IdleTmr Decremented PDC RefCount for Network to 0
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 b44 IdleTmr Decremented idle timer priority operation counter to 1
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU >>##  RESUMED  ## AU: Search for updates [CallId = {5393115A-5840-4CB4-9C66-F68034E75DF8} ServiceId = {9482F4B4-E343-43B6-B170-9A65BC822C77}]
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU   # 0 updates detected
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU #########
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU ##  END  ##  AU: Search for updates  [CallId = {5393115A-5840-4CB4-9C66-F68034E75DF8} ServiceId = {9482F4B4-E343-43B6-B170-9A65BC822C77}]
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU #############
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU All AU searches complete.
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU AU setting next detection timeout to 2013-12-17 22:55:28
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU WARNING: Failed to get Network Cost info from NLM, assuming network is NOT metered, error = 0x80240037
2013-12-16 20:32:06:422  752 ba0 AU WARNING: Failed to get Network Cost info from NLM, assuming network is NOT metered, error = 0x80240037

"When you hit a wrong note it's the next note that makes it good or bad". Miles Davis

We are in the process off moving our 2008R2 VM's from the 2008R2 HyperV servers to new Server 2012R2 Hosts.

We shut down the VM's copy the files and VHD's to the new CSV's en import the VM in the Hyperv Manager. Then we make them high available in the Failover Cluster Manager (Configure role - Virtual machine). We mount the integration tools and update the VM to version 6.3.9600.16384

For a specific type of VM (mostly RDS Host servers) we always had Dynamic Memory configured (when they were hosted on de 2008R2 platform), so we are using the same settings on the 2012r2 platform. The memory settings were;

Startup memory: 1024 MB

Minimum memory: 1024 MB

Maximum memory: 12288 MB

These VM's reboot every morning, this is done for specific reasons. But now once in a while (once per week/2 weeks) we notice that the VM's are not using more memory then 1024 MB while the demand is much higher. Rebooting the server helps most of the times, live migrating to another host also helps. In the VM we see that memory usage in the taskmanager is 99-100%, and after the move it immediately starts using more than the minimum configured amount.

Until the failover the memory usage was 1024 MB and it did not get any higher.

This happened several times. Last week we changed the Memory configuration to:

Startup memory : 2048 MB

Minimum memory: 2048 MB

Maximum memory: 12288 MB

But this morning we had a call about the performance of one of the VM's, We saw that it was only using 2 GB memory while the demand was much higher. After live migrating it to another host it started using more memory immediately.

The 2012R2 hosts are not overcommited, there is a lot of memory still available for the VM's. Those VM's never had this problem on the 2008R2 Hyperv platform.

Any idea why this happens?

Peter Camps

Hello,

I am running a server using Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter. I am using Hyper V to manage 7 virtual machines which were being stored on external storage. Recently a firmware update came through for the storage system and this caused a crash. The data was recovered free of charge by the storage manufacturer and so now I have access to all of the files that made up the virtual machines. I have moved these directly onto a new drive on the server itself. My issue now is that I dont seem to be able to import the machines. Is there any way that I can get these files to work in Hyper V again? I would really appreciate some help.

Ed.

Edward Hinds

Hello everybody,

I came here because I have strange network performance.

I have two windows server 2012 R2, one with hyper-v, the other one for storage which hold a storage space with tiering.

The hyper-v server has two NIC in team connected to a switch and the storage server is connected to the same switch with two NIC (no team).

As you can see above, performance of tiering storage space from the storage server himself.

Here the performance from the hyper-v to the same tiering storage space connected with a network drive. Performances are really close inside a VM which has is VHDX on the storage server, connected with SMB3 too.

Betters performance are 64MB/s, but when I copie a file to the same network drive, the average speed is 90MB/s as you can see below.

Do you have an idea about the source of the problem and how to solve it ?

Thanks by advance !

Hi all

We are running Hyper v 2012 r2 Failover Cluster . One VM we have 8 virtual processor . we have received below error in VM

VP 2 Object Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor Counter % Guest Run Time Has a value 93.

When we check the inside the vm in task manager the VM use only 4 virtual processor out of 8 .

Total CPU utilization is normal , but VP 2 and 3is showing high utilization . Please advise...

Regards

VMMS Account does not have sufficient privilege to open attachment ".....\SRVVirt.vhd"

I am logged in as administrator, Services ara running with following accounts :

Hyper-V Image Management Service - Network Service

Hyper-V Networking Management Service - Local System

Hyper-V Virtual machine managemet - Local System

Operating system is clear installation of Windows Server Standard 2008 RTM with Hyper-V

Installed roles :

Application server

File Services

Hyper-V

Web Server

any suggestions on how to overcome this issue and get the hypervisor running would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

Radek

.

hello guys, how to auto start VMs when the host is restarted?

Thanks.

Every second counts..make use of it. Disclaimer: This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.
IT Stuff Quick Bytes

I’ll start with the setup: 4 Dell servers running Windows Server2012r2, clustered with a shared SAN (connected via SAS).  1 teamed NIC (#1 and #2) on a Vlan, 1 single NIC(#3) on a different Vlan, and a ‘heartbeat’ NIC on its own switch.  All hosts are configured identically.  Hyper-V has 2 Virtual Switches, Virtual Switch1 with the teamed NIC’s, and Virtual Switch2 with the stand alone NIC.

Before last week, everything was running flawlessly. We don’t have cluster aware updating configured yet, so when I went to apply patches last Monday I moved VM’s manually, patched the host, rebooted and planned on moving VM’s back. 

The problem: Once patches were installed and I rebooted, all of the Virtual Switch Interfaces were gone from network and sharing center, and were showing up with ‘unable to load drivers’ under ‘network adapters’ in device manager (little yellow ‘!’ on the icon).  Also worth noting that the ‘Microsoft Hyper-V Network Switch Default Miniport’ network adapter was also giving an ‘unable to load device driver’ error (39). When I right clicked to uninstall and reinstall, nothing happens.  When attempting to open virtual switch manager under Hyper-V Manager, we get an error ‘An error occurred while trying to retrieve a list of virtual switches. The operation on computer ‘localhost’ failed.’.

We messed around with it for a while, and found the only way to get it back up and running was to wipe the OS and reinstall. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling Hyper-V and it didn’t fix the issue. It WILL NOT be cool to do that every time.  After I got the initial one up and running, I tried updating the next host in the cluster hoping it was a fluke.  It was not. Same issue with that one.

Did I do something wrong? Is it necessary to use Cluster Aware Updating? I have 2 more hosts to update, and not looking forward to it.

Hello.

I am trying to troubleshoot some performance issues with an application that utilizes sql server, which runs in a Hyper-V Guest.

I have found that the ram, cpu, disk i/o all appear to be within normal range.
Before troubleshooting the sql end of things, I wanted to make make sure the vm isn't waiting for cpu time.

In Vmware, the metric for this is " CPU Ready". From what I can tell, the equivilant to this for Hyper-V on server 2012 is:

Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual processor\CPU Wait time per dispatch.

I have fired this up and been monitoring it and found that the average is around 22,000, maximum 41,000.

The problem is, I have no idea if this is a normal or acceptable range. I can't seem to find any further information on actually interpreting this data, as to what is acceptable and what will cause performance issues etc..

Can anyone help enlighten me further on this?

Thanks

Does anyone know why location #1 fails, but #0 works? This is a Gen1 vm on a WS2012R2 host. $dvd is $null for me.

param([string] $vm, [string] $iso)

$dvd = Set-VMDvdDrive -ComputerName . -VMName $vm -Passthru -ControllerNumber 1 -ControllerLocation 1 -Path $iso
"dvd $dvd"

If there is a bug then I can probably work around it by using a SCSI controller instead of the second channel of either IDE controller.