As the talk about hardware virtualization heats up from Microsoft and others you might find yourself wondering if the current hardware you're running supports it.  My HP xw9300 workstation doesn't (older AMD Opterons), but it looks like my xw8400 does (Intel Xeon 5150s).

 

More info on programs you can use (including the one above) found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/volkerw/archive/2007/05/21/hardware-virtualization-check-utility.aspx

Determine Virtualization Readiness in 3 Seconds

Some other tidbits of info:

  • Hyper-V requires to be running on a 64bit OS, so do'nt install the x86 version of Wink28 if you want to use it. 
  • Hyper-V (Virtual Server) is a server role in Win2k8, you just add it in server manager
    • Buy the addition with Hyper-V if you want to use it
  • You can have 64bit VMs, I threw on Win2k3 x64 and Win2k8 x64 on my box.
  • Your VMs can see more than one logical proc.
    • At the time of this post the VM had to be Win2k8 as well, downlevel can only see one proc.  My x64 Win2k8 VM can see four procs now!
  • Have to enable Hardware virtualization in the BIOS as well as DEP, the role will still install but when you try to start the VM you'll hit a problem.
  • To install the additions the VM has to be running WIn2k3 SP2, if not you might find yourself without a NIC until you get the additions installed.  You can add a legacy NIC if you find yourself in this situation.
  • If you just import an old VM VHD from one of your other servers, make sure its an ACPI-compatible one.
  • If you are looking to install hyper-v on a server running active directory, stop.  You won't be able to boot your DC anymore (see below)

If you install the Active Directory Domain Services role and use the Active Directory Domain Services Installation Wizard (dcpromo.exe) to configure that role on the same physical computer on which the Hyper-V role is installed, you will receive a STOP error message 7B on the physical computer when you try to start a virtual machine.

To avoid this issue, do not install Active Directory Domain Services and Hyper-V on the same physical computer.

Microsoft Hyper-V site to find out more info if you like.

 Update:  Looks like AMD has released a tool help out here: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/03/31/amd-releases-hyper-v-check-tool.aspx