Hyper-V: Creating and Managing a Minimal 2012 installation from Windows 7
This is the process I used to create and install a Hyper-V 2012 minimal installation on my network on its own machine and manage it from a different machine running Windows 7. This installation targets two machines on a Workgroup network. Below are the steps taken for each of the machines.
| Step | Server | Client | Summary/Links |
| 1 | Install Hyper-V on the Server | Install Windows 7 | |
| 2 | Rename (Option 2) | Name your server something meaningful. I named my “HyperV”.  |
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| 3 | Get IP Address | Add Server IP to Hosts file Windows\System32\Drivers\etc |
Allows for quicker access during remote desktop. Note this step may ignored if the Server gets a dynamic IP. If that is the case the suggested option is to change the DNS server/gateway/router or whatever it is on the system to make it static. |
| 4 | Enable Remote Desktop for all clients 7) Remote Desktop |
Remote to Server | If you have issues at this point, pinging the server won’t tell you anything. The server is behind its firewall. See the below section miscellaneous commands to turn off the firewall. |
| 5 | 5) Do Windows Update Full | Get the latest and greatest | |
| 6 | Download / Install Remote Server Administration Tools For Windows 7 With Service Pack 1 (link) |
This allows you to create VMs from windows 7. Verify that there is not a new version since this blog was written. | |
| 7 | Follow install instruction’s on the download page (or the W7 Remote admin tools window which pops up after install) to turn on the newly installed windows 7 feature: Remote Server Administration Tools |
Control Panel –> Programs –> Programs and Features –> Turn Windows features on or off –> Remote Server Administration tools –> Select the tools needed (Hyper-V tools) | |
| 8 | 3) Create Local Admin Account the step #3 on the sconfig.cmd shell. | This account will be used to access the sever either during remote sessions. Note you might want to use the name of the client computer’s account for the name/password. Otherwise you will need to do an additional step #11 on the client. | |
| 9 | -Install On Server- | -Install on Client- | Hyper-V Remote Management Configuration Utility This is helps minimize the number of operations needed to configure a hyper-v setup on both the server and a remote server operation. Note this will help deduce any problems which might occur. This utility was made for a previous version of Hyper-V and for Windows 7. As of this writing it is being updated to be used on Windows 8. We will be following the 10-second guide on its page for “Client and Server both workgroup” but skipping steps no longer needed since this version of Hyper-V server has some of those commands offered on the initial boot screen. |
| 9 | cscript hvremote.wsf /add:{account name used in #8} | This step prepares for the remote admin access for hyper-v. | |
| 10 | cscript hvremote.wsf /anondcom:grant |
Check the script for “Granted Remote DCOM Access to Anonymous Logon” for success | |
| 11 | cmdkey /add:servername /user:servername\account /pass |
This step is only needed if either the client’s account or even just the password is different than what is done. (/pass is the actual, though in some situations to save the password use /pass:{actual passsword} | |
| 12 | cscript hvremote.wsf /show /target:{clinetComputerName} |
cscript hvremote.wsf /show /target:{ServerName} |
Identifies problems on either the client or the server. |
| 13 | Run Hyper-V manager Connect to Server |
If there is a problem here and one cannot connect to the server got step 12 and investigate. | |
| 14 | (Hyper-V Manager) Virtual Network Manager |
Setup networking for victuals to access the network. See next step in Virtual Network Manager (VNM) | |
| 15 | (Hyper-V Manager – VNM ) Add “External” virtual network |
Just name the network to use with Virtuals and accept that pending changes may disrupt the network. This may take awhile..so give it time. | |
| 16 | (Hyper-V Manager) Create a Virtual! |
Dust off that old ISO and create a virtual to remember. Just realize that the browse operation is from the server and not your client. |
Misc commands
| NET SHARE Images=D:\Images /GRANT:Everyone,FULL | Create a Share drive. |
| Get-VMSwitch | Lists all the virtual switches |
| netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state off | Turn off the firewall. Note that the firewall on a Hyper-V machine will block any ping from your internal network. |
