RC1 for Hyper-V Now Available for Download

• By Kurt Mackie
• 06/16/08

IT pros wanting to try out the latest Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization technology can now get the Release Candidate 1 (RC1) version via Windows Update. This optional version, which contains minor improvements, was first announced by Microsoft last month.

RC1 contains a few performance and bug fixes over RC0, according to the Microsoft Windows Virtualization Product Group Team Blog. Integration components (ICs) have been added to the integration services setup disk. RC1 also supports IPv4 address migration. There's also an improvement to work with Linux virtual machines.

The RC1 release comes with a heavy dose of caveats, however, which are described in the Team Blog. For instance, saved-state files are not supported between RC0 and RC1. This consideration also applies to online snapshots taken with Hyper-V RC0 because they contain "virtual machine save-states." The Team Blog describes some workarounds to these potential pitfalls.

Users of RC1 have to install the ICs specific to that build of Hyper-V. However, the good news is that "RC1 integration components for all supported Windows operating systems are now part of the IC setup disk," according to the Team Blog.

Another warning pertains to those using Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta, which does not yet support Hyper-V RC1. Microsoft plans to enable that capability at a later date, according to info described on Paul Thurrott's Super Site blog.

Hyper-V RC1 is available for both x86- and x64-based machines running Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 operating systems. One caveat is that RC1 installations on Windows Server 2008-based machines are "permanent," meaning that you can't roll back to RC0.

The download links are listed at the Team Blog site here.

For those willing to wait a month or more, the final Hyper-V product is expected to be available in late August, according to a June keynote Tech-Ed speech by Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business unit.