Have you seen the movie Inception? There was a part there where they were doing a dream within a dream, which is typically what I wanted to achieve with my nested virtualized lab. I am running MS Windows Server 2012r2 as a virtual machine on vmplayer, however I wanted to play around with hyper-v. Considering that my server is already virtualized and installing hyper-v would give me the following error message…
I’ve googled around and most of the work around involved typing a couple of powershell commands to make it happen. I just can’t be bothered typing a number of scripts, don’t get me wrong, I love powershell but I know there’s gotta be a way simpler way around this. The best solution I’ve come up with success is what I will be sharing with you in this post:)
What do you need? Definitely you need a PC capable and powerful enough to run nested VMs, installed with VMPlayer and a copy of Windows Server 2012r2 iso.
- Once you get vmplayer running, click Create a New Virtual Machine, choose “I will install the operating system later” radio button, and click Next >
- Now the next step is really crucial, on the “Select a Guest Operating System” page, tick “Microsoft Windows” radio button and under the version drop down menu, choose “Hyper-V (unsupported)”. (Again I can not stress out how important this step is) Click the Next > button for the next couple of pages until you reach the “Ready to Create Virtual Machine” page .
- Click the “Customize Hardware…” button and device list, click on processors, under the “Virtualization engine” section, make sure you tick “Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI” and the “Virtualize CPU performance counters” check boxes.
- Click “New CD/DVD (SATA), and on the Connection section, tick the “Use ISO image file:” radio button and browse the location of your Windows Server 2012r2 iso file.
- It is now up to you if you want to add more Network Adapter and other settings you may want to set up for your lab.
And your done! Fire up the VM and go through your typical installation of your server and once everything is up and running you can install the hyper-v role and features. happy days…
* Btw, assuming you have installed Server 12r2 and installed hyper-v, please do not forget to restart your server for changes to effect.
Running-Config 