Hyper-V Beta now available for download!

Go and get it while it's hot:

This is Windows Server 2008 RC1 with the Hyper-V Beta components.

Lots of changes since the preview, huge improvements in performance, stability and compatibility as well as:

Support for installing Hyper-V on Windows Server core.
Support for clustering of Hyper-V.
Support for VSS backup of Hyper-V.
Integration Services are now part of Windows Server 2008 (which means that if you use the CD image of this beta to install Windows Server 2008 inside a virtual machine - Integration Services will automatically be there with no need for you to perform extra steps).

I will post detailed installation instructions soon - but two pointers to get you started:

There are no .MSUs anymore. Just install Windows, select to install a new server role, and select 'Hyper-V'.
You need to install using 'English (United States)'. If you install with any other language (or flavor of English) Hyper-V will not work. However - you can change the local / keyboard preferences for your user after installation without any problems.

Cheers,
Ben

Comments

Anonymous
December 13, 2007
Been using the beta for a while too. We have also been running VMware in production for the past year. No comparison unfortunately. We are sticking with VMware until Microsoft shows us value.
Anonymous
December 14, 2007
Hey Ben, the file name seems to imply that this is AMD 64 only. Is that the case?
Anonymous
December 14, 2007
Do you know where i can find info on setting up the new quick migration and HA features?
Anonymous
December 15, 2007
Actually changing system locale from Swedish to EN-US still didn't get Hyper-V to start, so I ended upp reinstalling the server. Then it worked.