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Is it possible to move a Hyper-V VM client from Server 2016 to Windows 10 or 11?

GraniteStateColin 156 Reputation points
2022-01-06T14:41:43.14+00:00

I see many articles and posts about moving Hyper-V VMs between servers and in some cases even from Windows 10 to Windows Server, but I don't see anything about moving in the other direction: moving an existing VM client that was created and has been running on Windows Server 2016 to Hyper-V running on Windows 10 or Windows 11. I have both Windows Server and Windows 10 client VM's running on Windows Server 2016 that I'd like to be able to spin-up on future Windows 10/11 host machines.

The need to do this is because we moved some of our Windows AD functions to the cloud and are decommissioning our Windows on-premise AD and shutting down the Windows Server 2016 systems as that OS goes EOL. We're not moving to Azure AD (we decided this was too small a team to need AD any longer), and will just have a bunch of Windows 11 Pro systems networked in a simple Workgroup configuration accessing Exchange, Teams, and Office 365 in the Cloud. However, there are some VM's we had on the servers that we'd also like to preserve, moving them to run on Windows 11 Pro host machines.

I know there are some differences and limitations of Hyper-V between Server and Windows 10, so not sure if the Windows 10 (and now 11) Hyper-V host can run a client exported from Windows Server 2016. And please note that the current hosts are specifically Windows Server 2016, Hyper V Manager Version 10.0.14393.0. By default, the client would be Windows 11, but we can use 10 if that's needed for some reason.

Will we be able to do this? Are there any considerations or steps I'd need to do differently from exporting and importing between 2 different Windows Server 2016 machines?

Windows for business | Windows Client for IT Pros | Storage high availability | Virtualization and Hyper-V
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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-06T15:25:10.15+00:00

    Export / import may be the simplest method. You should also be able to copy VHDs to destination and create a new virtual machine with same properties, then when you get to step Connect Virtual Hard Disk choose Use an existing and point to the 2016 export.

    --please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-06T14:47:09.383+00:00

    Should not be a problem with this but note that many consumer-grade network adapters do a poor job of hosting an external virtual switch so expect some slowness.

    --please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

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  2. GraniteStateColin 156 Reputation points
    2022-01-06T16:06:50.827+00:00

    Thank you! With that, I'll dive in. :-). I'll report back if I run into any problems, but hopefully not.

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