2

I am trying to perform Microsoft Platform testing for a vendor application. The problem I have is that it requires the test be done on Windows Server 2008 as a VM on Hyper-V R2. Currently, I have access to a virtual server with just Hyper-V and also have access to an ESXi server.

The crazy idea is to install Hyper-V R2 as a VM onto one of these other servers. Then create a VM for Windows Server 2008 on this Hyper-V R2 VM. I can not just upgrade the current Hyper-V server as the VMs currently running would need to be taken off-line and are system critical (and I don't have rights to perform this upgrade).

Has anyone tried this? Will this even work?

2 Answers 2

1

No, this will not work. You cannot run a VM host as a guest VM. I'd post a more lengthy answer, but the nutshell answer is definitely not.

2
  • That's all I was wondering. I just didn't want to waste my time trying if it wasn't a viable solution. One day I'll get into the nitty-gritty of how VMs work and probably realize how silly this question is. Thanks!
    – Tim
    Mar 18, 2010 at 17:47
  • It is mostly a hardware issue. The Hyper-Visor runs in a priviledged mode and blocks access of the virtual clients to this - so once you run in a hyper-visor, you can not start another one.
    – TomTom
    Mar 18, 2010 at 18:33
1

Well technically this is true, you cannot run a Bare metal HyperVisor as a guest of a bare metal hypervisor. Interestingly you can though run Virtual Server on a guest server of Hyper-V. Don't try it, performance was awful, but I had to try it. Actually I virtualized a server, that was hosting a specialized XP guest, just had to try and bring it up.

Funny note, some 25 years ago a friend who was a VM (IBMs VM) system tech actually tried this, he got 12 to 16 levels deep before the performance became unbearable.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .