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I know that Hyper-V does not support creating a virtual switch together with the wireless network adapter. One previous question here on serverfault asked almost the same question, and that question answered that you could use internet connection sharing. I tried that, and it creates a new subnet from which my Hyper-V clients can access internet.

The problem is that I can't connect to my Hyper-V clients using remote desktop, as the internal subnet is not reachable from my outside servers.

I know it is very unusual to want to use the wireless network card for a server, but let's just say that on this specific server I need to do that.

Does anyone know how to set up this so that I can access the Hyper-V clients from the network?

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  • What sort of machine are your running Hyper-V on?
    – tombull89
    Jan 8, 2013 at 9:05
  • It's a pure Windows 2012 Standard. The hardware is probably not important I guess, only that it is only possible to use the wireless network card. It has enough memory and harddisks, as well as CPU. Jan 8, 2013 at 12:02
  • Machine and network? Jan 8, 2013 at 13:58
  • I'm sorry, I dont understand your question. It's a physical machine, and in this case with only one wireless network adapter. Not ideal, I know but it's what I have. Jan 8, 2013 at 15:29

4 Answers 4

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Windows Server 2012 DOES support wireless network adapters associated with virtual network switches in Hyper-V. When creating your virtual switch, select External as the type and select your wireless adapter from the drop down list. If this is the only network adapter in your physical server, you will also want to check the box for "allow management operating system to share this network adapter".

Update (1/16/13 - 8:30 PM) to provide more details

Ensure your wireless adapter is indeed working - driver installed and able to connect to wireless network. As you can see, my wireless adapter does show up in the list (bottom adapter in screenshot).

Adapters

When creating the Virtual switch, I select the wireless adapter from drop down list (make sure to select type of External).

Virtual switch

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  • On the other Windows 2012 servers with wired lan adapters, I can create the external switch as you say. However on this server, as it only has a wireless network adapter, it does not show up in the list of network adapters. Can you please explain how you did in order to enable your wireless adapter in the virtual switch wizard? Jan 16, 2013 at 6:23
  • @jonas lewin: I am / have edited my answer to include some screenshots of my system for reference. Jan 17, 2013 at 3:29
  • I have now tried, and my Atheros AR9271 Wireless Network Adapter does not show up in the list. The Atheros chip supports promiscuous mode, but for some reason I am not able to create an external switch, as this network card does not show up in the list. I appreciate your answer Harold, and the fact that you took the time to make the screenshots to show me that yours is working just fine. Jan 18, 2013 at 18:42
  • Are you able to connect to a wireless network successfully? Jan 18, 2013 at 23:04
  • Yes, I can connect to the wireless without any problems. Jan 21, 2013 at 5:22
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Try this if you want to have a NAT between your VMs and the physical network or this if you want to get separate IPs for your VMs on the physical network.

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My network adapter didn't show up in that list at first either, and I had to do the following:

  1. In Hyper-V Manager, go to Action -> Virtual Switch Manager (make sure no machines are selected in the main window or you'll have machine-specific options in the Actions menu and the Virtual Switch Manager option won't be available) Step 1

  2. Select "New virtual network switch" in the left-hand pane and "External" in the right-hand pane and hit "Create Virtual Switch"

  3. You should now be able to select any of your ethernet/wifi adapters for use with the virtual switch. Name it whatever you like and hit OK. Step 3

  4. In the settings for the virtual machine, you should now see the new virtual switch as an option. Step 4

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Another option you can use to enable the wireless card is the same thing you had to do in 2008 or 2008 R2 to enable the use of the wireless card on hyper-v. You can bridge the network. There is a step-by-step guide that shows how to do this at http://itproguru.com/expert/2012/08/configure-windows-server-2008-r2-lab-environment-hands-on-guide/ It is a bit of a drawn out process but it is pretty simple. Start following the instructions at Step #9.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft and http://ITProGuru.com is my primary personal [and official] blog

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  • I tried that before I asked the question. The problem with briding is that it will not create a new private virtual network, meaning that I can't setup web servers / access them via remote desktop as they have no "public" ip address. Harolds answer was great, but it seems that it will not work at all on my server. Feb 2, 2013 at 17:06

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