Virtual Machines (VMs) are great for a wide variety of tasks, including running different operating systems or software configurations on a single machine. Windows 8 brings new VM capabilities to the client side as the first Windows client operating system to include hardware virtualization support without requiring separate downloads or installs.
The feature is called Client Hyper-V. It’s the same technology as used in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, which makes it easy to move VMs between server and client.
Why would you want to do that? Here’s an example. You could build a test lab infrastructure hosted entirely on your laptop or desktop computer, and then export the virtual machines you create and test onto production servers.
Or let’s assume you have an app that you need to test on Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows XP. You can create three virtual machines with these operating system versions easily and complete your tests on the computer running Client Hyper-V, instead of on the production computer or in a dedicated testing lab.
Read the Extreme Windows blog post to find out what you need to run Hyper-V on Windows 8, how to set it up and instructions for creating and connecting to VMs.
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Steve Clarke
Microsoft News Center Staff