How to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 from Windows XP/Server 2003?

Question

We currently have several VMs running under Virtual Server 2005 SP1. I would like to move these to Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. However, we only have Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 machines at present - and that is unlikely to change in the time-frame I need.

All of the tools I have seen so far to manage Hyper-V Server require Vista, or Windows 7, or a full Server 2008 machine.

1. Are there any tools that will work on Windows XP/Server 2003 to manage the Hyper-V Server?
2. Can everything necessary (e.g. creating VMs/virtual hard drives, mounting .iso as virtual cd drive, starting/stopping vms, etc) be accomplished via the Hyper-V Server commandline?
3. Where is a good reference for the Hyper-V commandline?

Answer 1

1 -

• A couple things come to mind. Perhaps you can run Vista in a local PC virtual. The justification is server mgmt is a vista+ only proposition.
• You could install the tools in as remote desktop terminal services apps using a WIn2k8 virtual(we do this).

2 - Yes. As you work in Virtual machine manager, you can see the Powershell code behind each task. That's prob. a good starting place for learning

3- I assume Technet will have all this. Here's an MS presentation

Answer 2

You could use Powergui with the Hyper-V powerpack to perform certain tasks. (via Poshoholic, and an earlier thread I posted)