System requirements for Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview

Applies To: Windows Server Technical Preview

This is preliminary content and subject to change.

Hyper-V has specific hardware requirements, and some Hyper-V features have additional requirements. Use the details in this article to decide what requirements your system must meet so you can use Hyper-V the way you plan to. Then, review the Windows Server catalog.

The list of operating systems you can run in your virtual machines is covered in Supported Windows guest operating systems for Windows Server Technical Preview.

General requirements

Regardless of the Hyper-V features you want to use, you’ll need:

• A 64-bit processor with second-level address translation (SLAT). To install the Hyper-V virtualization components such as Windows hypervisor, the processor must have SLAT. However, it’s not required to install Hyper-V management tools like Virtual Machine Connection (VMConnect), Hyper-V Manager, and the Hyper-V cmdlets for Windows PowerShell. See How to check for Hyper-V requirements to find out if your processor has SLAT.

• VM Monitor Mode extensions

• Enough memory – plan for at least 4 GB of RAM. More memory is better. You’ll need enough memory for the host and all virtual machines that you want to run at the same time.

• Virtualization support turned on in the BIOS or UEFI:

  • Hardware-assisted virtualization. This is available in processors that include a virtualization option—specifically processors with Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology.

  • Hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP) must be available and enabled. Specifically, you must enable Intel XD bit (execute disable bit) or AMD NX bit (no execute bit).

How to check for Hyper-V requirements

Open Windows PowerShell or a command prompt and type ‘Systeminfo.exe’. Scroll to the Hyper-V Requirements section to review the report.

Requirements for specific features

Here are the requirements for discrete device assignment and shielded virtual machines. For descriptions of these features, see What's new in Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview.

Discrete device assignment

Host requirements are similar to the SR-IOV virtualization requirements that are in-place for Hyper-V.

• The processor must have either Intel’s Extended Page Table (EPT) or AMD’s Nested Page Table (NPT).

• The chipset must have:

  • Interrupt remapping: Intel’s VT-d with the Interrupt Remapping capability (VT-d2) or any version of AMD I/O Memory Management Unit (I/O MMU).

  • DMA remapping: Intel’s VT-d with Queued Invalidations or any AMD I/O MMU.

  • Access control services (ACS) on PCI Express root ports.

• The firmware tables must expose the I/O MMU to the Windows hypervisor. Note that this feature might be turned off in the UEFI or BIOS. For instructions, see the hardware documentation or contact your hardware manufacturer.

 Devices need GPU or non-volatile memory express (NVMe). For GPU, only certain devices support discrete device assignment. To verify, see the hardware documentation or contact your hardware manufacturer. For details about this feature, including how to use it and considerations, see the post "Discrete Device Assignment -- Description and background" in the Virtualization blog.

Shielded virtual machines

These virtual machine rely on virtualization-based security, which supports several new features in Windows Server 2016 Technical preview. Virtualization-based security has the following hardware for the host:

• UEFI 2.3.1c -- supports secure, measured boot

These are optional for virtualization-based security in general, but required for the host if you want the protection these features provide:

• TPM v2.0, protects platform security assets

• IOMMU (Intel VT-D), so the hypervisor can provide direct memory access (DMA) protection

Virtual machine requirements are:

• Generation 2

• Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview, Windows Server 2012R2 or Windows Server 2012 as the guest operating system