A question I’ve actually heard several times before came up again at our TechNet Event in Kansas City several weeks ago:
“Can I use Hyper-V as a VM (within Windows 7)?”
No.
“Can you elaborate?”
Absolutely.
First of all, Hyper-V is a role added to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Hyper-V can’t be run inside of a virtual machine – even one that supports Windows Server 2008 R2 – because in order to work Hyper-V requires at a minimum:
- An x64-based processor,
- A processor that supports Intel VT or AMD-V technology, and
- Hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP) – available and enabled.
(Check out THIS PAGE for the full list of Hyper-V requirements.)
The problem with a virtual machine, whether it’s running on Hyper-V, Windows Virtual PC (the one that runs on Windows 7), or VMware, is that the virtualized processor that the running operating system sees is not a processor capable of running Hyper-V. So, while it would be cool to virtualize the actual virtualization platform, that’s not something that you can currently do. (UPDATE: “Sebastian” informs us in the comments that VMware Workstation 8 and ESXi 5 can actually simulate Intel VT, so it is indeed possible to get Hyper-V running from within a VM. http://www.veeam.com/blog/nesting-hyper-v-with-vmware-workstation-8-and-esxi-5.html)
An additional note regarding your question about Windows 7 specifically is that Windows Virtual PC running on Windows 7 doesn’t support 64-bit guest operating systems. So you can’t run the current Windows Server 2008 R2 as a virtual machine under Windows Virtual PC anyway. The good news is that Microsoft announced that we will include Hyper-V within the successor to Windows 7, currently codename “Windows 8”.
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Remember: Our new event schedule is live. You can come and ask your questions, too! “We may be comin’ to your town.” –The Monkees
Absolutely Full of I.T. 
You can run Hper-V in VMware Workstation 8 and in ESXi 5:
http://www.veeam.com/…/nesting-hyper-v-with-vmware-workstation-8-and-esxi-5.html
best regards sebastian
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Ah.. thanks Sebastian. I stand (actually sit) corrected. That's cool that they can emulate Intel-VT.
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Hi Kevin – depending on what you need to the environment to do I have had success with installing Hyper-V in a 2008 VM using "OCSETUP Microsoft-Hyper-V" from a command line. This installs the Hyper-V components – which means you can do everything in Hyper-V – apart from actually start the VM – but depending on the circustance that might be enough – when I am doing Hyper-V demos – I will sometimes use that as a quick method. I have some pretty complex demo's that I do with SCVMM, Operations Manager and Opalis – all from a set of virtual machines – just with that little point that the final part of starting a VM doesn't work.
The other thing that I do on my Win7 machine if I know I need to use a launchable Hyper-V VM – then I flip to my boot from VHD install of 2008 which has Hyper-v installed and configured and run it from there.
Cheers
Kyle
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Hi Kyle! Yes, that's a very good point, and I'm glad you brought it up. There are times when just being able to install Hyper-V is all you need – for testing, training, or trying out other management tools against it (such as SCVMM).
And yes, Boot-to-VHD is awesome. We're actually going to be giving the attendees of our next set of IT Camps the option to copy a .VHD containing a pre-installed (non-activated evaluation) Windows Server w/Hyper-V configured, and instructions on how to add (and later remove it) as another boot option.
Cheers to you!
Kevin
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