How can I find out if my computer is able to run Client Hyper-V in Windows 8?

Question

I want to try Client Hyper-V out in Windows 8. How do I find out if my computer is capable of running it?

Answer 1

To check whether your computer meets the system requirements for Client Hyper-V is Windows 8, type the following at a CMD or PowerShell prompt:

systeminfo

At the bottom of the output you will see something like this:

Hyper-V Requirements:      VM Monitor Mode Extensions: No
                           Virtualization Enabled In Firmware: No
                           Second Level Address Translation: No
                           Data Execution Prevention Available: Yes

In the example above you can see that the machine I am using is not capable of running Client Hyper-V.

Additionally, from the Microsoft website:

Hyper-V requires a 64-bit system that has Second Level Address Translation (SLAT). For information about checking and changing the virtualization support settings of your system BIOS, consult your system manufacturer.

Hyper-V supports the creation of both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems in virtual machines.

Note You must license each of the virtual machine operating systems according to their requirements. 4 GB of RAM is required. The RAM on your computer running Client Hyper-V is allocated and deallocated dynamically as required by the virtual machines. You can run several virtual machines on a computer running Client Hyper-V (also called a “host”) that has the minimum 4 GB of RAM, but you will need additional RAM for 5 or more virtual machines, depending on the RAM requirements for each virtual machine.

Client Hyper-V supports the same storage migration capability that is included in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012. This means you can have your virtual machines fairly independent of the underlying storage. You can move a virtual machine’s storage to and from one local drive to another, to a USB drive, or to a remote file share without needing to stop the virtual machine.