Hello World,

Today, we will have a first look at the new feature available within Windows 2016 Server edition. Microsoft is working hard on the next release of Windows Server (i.e. Windows 2016). This version comes with a lot of new features such as storage replica or containers. The Technical Preview 4 is available for download and people are starting to test all these new features.

This post will provide a quick overview of the new hyper-v capability to nest virtual machines. In Windows Server 2016, it’s possible to create a virtual machine and install the Hyper-V Role. Inside the Hyper-V virtual machine, it’s possible to create virtual machines and have them running. In Windows 2012 R2, It was possible to instal lthe hyper-v role within a Virtual machine but there was no way to start virtual machines within this virtualized hyper-v machine.

This feature has been introduced because of the new container technology and the hyper-v container Microsoft has introduced in order to provide stronger isolation when working with containers. This feature can be useful in test and lab environment where an Hyper-V infrastructure might be needed (ex. testing SCVMM features…)

Some Pre-requisites

In order to test and enable this feature, the following requirements must be met :

Hyper-V host must be running Windows Server 2016
Virtual machine where Hyper-V will be installed must be running Windows Server 2016
The Hyper-V host must have a cpu that support SLAT feature

The SLAT requirement is not specific to the nested virtual machine but this is a requirement for Hyper-V feature in Windows Server 2016. In previous Hyper-V version, this feature was not enforced. Now, with Windows Server 2016, this is needed. If you CPU does not support this SLAT feature, you will not be able to install the Hyper-V role.

Process Overview

The following items summarize what needs to be done in order to test and play around with the Nested virtual machine capabilities.

Step 1 – Install Windows Server 2016 on a physical machine (with a capable SLAT CPU)
Step 2 – Check/verify that the cpu meets the necessary requirements (SLAT capable)
Step 3 – Install Hyper-V role on the Host
Step 4 – Enable the nesting VM Capability on the Virtual Machine
Step 5 – Install Windows Server 2016 and Hyper-V role inside the virtual machine
Step 6 – Create a Virtual machine and boot it in order to ensure that the nested virtual machine can actually run

Installing Windows 2016

In this post, we will be focusing on the installation process of Windows Server 2016 Operating System. The part 2 of this post will cover the SLAT detection and verification, and will describe how to enable the nesting virtual machine capabilities.

Step 1 – To install Windows Server 2016, you will need to get a copy of the latest version available (You can download evaluation version from here)

Step 2 – Insert the cd, usb, iso or boot from pxe network and start the installation process. You might see the message Press any key to start installation (or similar)

Step 3 – After booting from your media, the setup Wizard will start and you will see the following screen, choose your settings accordingly and Press Next