I wanted to get this information out as when I was researching the error below I could not find any information on it online or in our internal database. Hopefully it helps someone out there and they don't have to have a night sleep to have their, eureka moment.
When running Compare-VM command against a Hyper-V guest configuration file, do not rename the file. If the file name is not in GUID format, the following error will occur. After renaming the file to a GUID format, the command worked fine. Using any GUID seems to work, as I deleted the VM from Hyper-V Manager and didn't have the original GUID available.
PS C:\> compare-vm -Path "C:\temp\test2008.xml" -verbose
VERBOSE: compare-vm will import the virtual machine saved at "C:\temp\test2008.xml".
compare-vm : Guid should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).
At line:1 char:1
+ compare-vm -Path "C:\temp\test2008.xml" -verbose
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Compare-VM], FormatException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Unspecified,Microsoft.HyperV.PowerShell.Commands.CompareVMCommand