Tag Archives: hyper-v

change windows 2012 to core mode

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downloadFound yourself considering hyper-v? Microsoft has come a long way and is now becoming more popular as a serious contender in the hypervisor area. My preference is still VMware, but some businesses may find their Microsoft allegiance makes hyper-v a valid option.

Note, i do not consider Microsoft a “cheaper” solution in any circumstance. The current state of hyper-v, SDN options, clustering and VMM management falls very short of what VMware has out of the box. Anyhow, if you do choose windows, here is how you remove the GUI – hopefully saving you a little bit of RAM and reducing the running footprint open for attacks and vulnerabilities….

 

 

Powershell commands to convert between the following windows modes;

Full Server -> Server Core with GUI Management (Minimal Server Interface)

Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell -Restart

Full Server -> Server Core

Uninstall-Windowsfeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra -Restart

Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell -Restart

Server Core -> Full Server

Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell -Restart

Server Core with GUI Management (Minimal Server Interface) -> Full Server

Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell -Restart

Note : always use windows firewall. If possible also consider AV solution to further protect your hosts.

hyper-v to esx conversion

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V2V cold clone process for SBS / exchange / sql / DC’s etc…..    (works in vSphere)

Steps to convert from hyper-v guest to vmware guest

  • Remove hyper-v integrated services while hyper-v guest is running. (if possible)
  • Note down NIC networking details first
  • Clean shutdown hyper-v guest
  • Use StarWind Converter (free) to convert VHD to “dynamically growing VMware” image and use “IDE” as type. Note “SCSI” does NOT work if you have not got the LSI / BUS drivers in the source image, just use the default options – dynamic vmware and IDE.
  • Create VMware guest shell (virtual machine equivalent to hyper-v specs but without the disks) – remove all hard drives, iscsi controller should also disappear.
  • Upload the VMDK to same data store as virtual machine and attach to the virtual guest in the right order. They should be detected as “IDE”
  • Start new vmware guest
  • If you could not remove integrated services (i.e. hot clone), then you MUST disable hyper-v services immediately.
  • Install vmware tools – reboot
  • Remove hidden NIC and other orphaned devices, and reconfigure network card as per original.
  • Windows may need to be re-activated – do this.

Note : converting a machine to use an IDE controller will limit its performance!