HYPERV IS NOT A TYPE1 HYPERVISOR .... BUT IT COULD BE

 HYPERV IS NOT A TYPE1 HYPERVISOR .... BUT IT COULD BE

Well this is going to be a short post, but I see hundreds of Youtube Videos on HyperV being a Type1 hypervisor versus its competitors as the reason to use it.... this is HOGWASH.....why? The difference between a Type1 Hypervisor and a Type2 Hypervisor is whether the Hypervisor has COMPLETE CONTROL OF ALL HARDWARE RESOURCES.....

Windows HyperV does not have the all of the resources on a Windows Desktop(Windows10 supports Hypervisor) or a Windows Server, you can load regular services on it including a Webserver, and a SQL server with limited reduction in resources to the Hypervisor. Furthermore base Windows services load on all Windows platforms which are independent.

Out of the box without modification, HyperV on Windows Server or Windows Workstation is no different that Virtual Box on Windows Server, or Vmware Workstation on Windows. Its just another service running on the core Windows server... a very cool one we agree, but the Hypervisor itself usually starts Virtual Machines as just another Windows Process. So the Hypervisor is not actively engaged with the Spawned Resources unless the Hypervisor is running a shared LAN segment in software (which we dont recommend).

THE ROAD TO WINDOWS MATCHING ESXI AS A TYPE1 HYPERVISOR IS POSSIBLE BUT ITS PERILOUS

We have more than 20 years as desktop engineers, and if you have ever tried to strip a Windows platform down to what you think you need, you usually are wrong somehow.... for example you can turn off various workstation functions by disabling services that dont make sense for your environment, but when you do, something else breaks unpredictably and Microsoft adds and distributes services over time making this process even more difficult.

So in practice to get Windows to be a Type1 Hypervisor... you almost have to run Windows 10 which has almost no loss in function, or run Windows Server with absolutely no check boxes on windows services except HyperV itself, if you do either of things you are close, but you are really just running stripped down windows, Powershell still works, and you really cant block administrators from breaking it. ESXi cant really be broken as is the only True Type1 Hypervisor..... yes Zen is also a Type2 Hypervisor, but like Windows can be very austere...