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I was looking for How to Install Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V for some time and finally I found here.

This page discusses the Hyper-V Release Candidate (RC). The information in this article is provided as is and is subject to change without notice. No formal product support is available from Microsoft for this beta release of this feature.

• Prerequisites
• Pre-installation Steps for Migrating from the Beta
• Enabling the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V role
• Migrating from Hyper-V Beta to RC
• Managing Hyper-V via MMC
• Recommended Configuration for Guest OS
• Operating System Availability
• Recommended Hardware Devices
• Partner Tested Hardware
• Removing Hyper-V

PrerequisitesThe Release Candidate for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is only available for x64 editions of Windows Server 2008 RTM. If you are using a version of Windows Server 2008 that is pre-RTM, you will need to perform a clean install of Windows Server 2008 RTM x64 edition on your host system. Hyper-V cannot be enabled on systems running inside virtual machines or on x86 versions of Windows Server 2008.

The full set of prerequisites for installing Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 will be published separately closer to RTM. The RC release of Hyper-V is available with Windows Server 2008 x64 editions. Hyper-V requires an x64-based processor, hardware-assisted virtualization, and hardware data execution protection. For the RC release, a maximum of sixteen logical processors are tested.

Pre-installation Steps for Migrating from the Beta

If you had previously installed the Beta of Hyper-V  on Windows Server 2008 RTM, the following steps are recommended for moving to the RC version of Hyper-V:

• Take a backup of all your Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs) once you have shutdown the virtual machines.
• Take a note of all of the Virtual Machine (VM) configuration settings such as storage configuration, memory allocations, etc. You will need to re-create the virtual machine settings as these are not compatible with the RC version.
• Take a backup of all your data on the system.
• Install the updates from Download Center or Windows Update (available post March 25, 2008) for the RC version. As mentioned above the RC update package will only install on RTM version Windows Server 2008. Reboot as requested.

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Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Beta is available for download.

Microsoft is on track to deliver Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization by August 2008. Hyper-V RC is a feature-complete version and has three main enhancements from the beta release:

• An expanded list of tested and qualified guest operating systems including: Windows Server 2003 SP2, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows XP SP3. (How about other Linux Distro?)

• Host server and language support has been expanded to include the 64-bit (x64) versions of Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter - with English, partial German, and partial Japanese language options now available and the ability to enable the English version of Hyper-V on other locales.

• Improved performance & stability for scalability and throughput workloads.

“Delivering the high-quality Hyper-V beta earlier than expected allows our customers and partners to begin evaluating this feature of Windows Server 2008 and provide us with valuable feedback as we march toward final release”, said Bill Laing, general manager of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. “Along with Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008 offers cost-effective and flexible licensing for virtualization so that customers and partners can extend the savings realized through server consolidation and deliver on the vision of Dynamic IT.”

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