Installing the Windows Server Virtualization Preview (Viridian)

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As many have heard by now, a preview version of Windows Server Virtualization has shipped on the CD with Windows Server 2008 RC0! I was going to write up a post detailing the prerequisites, installation process, etc. but some others have already done a good job with that so here are the links:

https://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2007/09/24/windows-server-virtualization-community-technology-preview-now-available.aspx

https://blogs.msdn.com/mikekol/archive/2007/09/24/installing-viridian-ctp-on-windows-server-2008-rc0.aspx

https://blogs.technet.com/aralves/archive/2007/09/25/how-to-install-windows-server-virtualization.aspx

The biggest gotchas that we've run into internally are discussed in these blogs and the release notes. Basically they are remembering to: Ensure the proper processor requirements are met, enabling hardware virtualization in the BIOS, powering off your machine after changing the BIOS then turning it back on, installing the two WSV updates from %systemroot%\wsv after W008 is installed (I fogrot this and kept looking on the CD), hitting F5 to refresh in server manager if you don't see the role. It's basically a very straightforward install. After that, most of the concepts are similar to Virtual Server,

Enjoy!