Hyper-V issues (multiple issues with VM's)

I've had Hyper-V installed for at least a year or two and never had problems with it. When I first started with it, I would run one of the VMs at least once or twice a week. However, I haven't run any of the VMs in about 2 months. I've done many Windows Updates since then on the Host computer.

I just opened Hyper-V today and it lists my 3 VMs as normal, so I opened my Tutorial VM and everything booted up fine, however it has NO internet access. I shut down the VM and in the Hyper-V app I deleted and readded the network interface. Again, booted normal, but no internet.

I shut it down again and decided to try the other VM's to see if they had the same problem (maybe it's a change on the host computer), but when I went to open them, I click Start and it throws an error claiming the "Synthetic SCSI Controller" is access denied.



I located the file it references, made a copy of the file in a new location, deleted the original and copied that file back with the same results. My third VM has an identical error to this one (obviously pointing at a different *.avhdx file though).

All three VM's have legit licenses to Windows 11 and the thing that is making the most mad is the Official one (shown above) has a legit license for Office and other software as well. I don't want to have to buy more keys and start over if I can help it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated... as far as I know, I have not changed any settings on the Host that should affect the VM's and I know other than deleting/readding the network interface on the Tutorial one I have not changed settings in Hyper-V Manager.

Sorry, I should have put this in Virtualization section, if someone can move it that'd be great, otherwise I still apologize for the mistake.

Hmmm. Have you tried restoring the most recent checkpoint on both?

I just checked again, I think I was an idiot a few months ago (or needed space or something). All three VM's only have a single checkpoint and I must have deleted all the others (cause they worked back then).

I use PS to create and delete the checkpoints. Try manually creating new checkpoints see if it will then load the VMs.

You'll probably need to use the Delete checkpoint tree command, do it with the one that is there, then (maybe) go back and create new checkpoints. But I think delete tree should be sufficient, so it will remove the association(s) to the missing checkpoint files (I think).

Right clicking on the checkpoint for any given VM should show both Delete and Delete tree.

The above error was when I right clicked a checkpoint in the Checkpoint section (middle of the screen)... I also tried to right click the machine at the top of the screen and do "Revert" with a simple (albeit slightly different error saying the same thing).

Ahhh, #%^$%#^. Deleting forces a merge - and it can't merge what ain't there. I forgot that.

Hmmm. Long shot may be to turn off checkpoints in the VM, then boot it and see if it loads - I doubt it will - but if it does, then you can safely exit back out and re-enable it.

More reliable method may be that you need to rebuild the VMs and use the existing .VHDX virtual drives, but that may not work as they may still rely on the missing checkpoint files.

I'm not even sure where to go from here. Probably going to need to research this more carefully online and see if there is another method to force the VM to load without the checkpoints present.

Well, when I used them a few months ago, they all loaded fine with the previous checkpoints removed and only keeping the latest. So I can research how to rebuild it as you said and see since they shouldn't require any checkpoints.

Yeah.

You could always try Windows File Recovery (or another recovery app like TestDisk) and see if the missing checkpoints are recoverable - but that is a long shot too, I think. Won't hurt, though, because that would probably be both less time consuming and less painful than rebuilding lol. Believe me - I have 15 VMs, and rebuilding those took some time...

Is there a way to extract the Windows License out of a broken VM... if I can do that, I'll just delete it and create a new one. I'd also like/hope I can get my Office key as well, but I think I can get away with just downloading it again from office.com

Are you using a Microsoft account on the VMs?

If so, check your Microsoft account for the licensed devices:




If not - you may need to try building a new VM and using the existing VHDX.

But, to be fair, Microsoft is pretty good about not complaining about the same key being used in the same machine (though different VMs) more than once - usually.

I think I was using local accounts on all the VM's cause I needed the Enhanced whatever stuff that breaks when you use MA. However, I logged in with the link you provided and it does have one of the VM's listed (not all 3) and it shows the serial number, not the key.

But the key is integrated into that. All the documentation I've found is that embedded is the key - so when installing, you don't actually enter a key, just skip it, and it pulls it from your Microsoft account.

Not sure what the Enhanced thing you're referring to - but I use local accounts to log in to all VMs, but still associated them with an MSA so things like the activation is tied to the account.

Kari, one of our resident gurus, coined the term as a hybrid login - actual login via local user account, but then directly associated with an MSA.

I'll make sure to do that when I create the new one in a minute. The Enhanced thing if I remember correct had something to do with "Windows Hello" making log in a complete pain in the butt and you couldn't full screen properly... Sadly I have memory issues so I can't be more specific, but I can look up some of my old posts about it if you're interested. Anyway, brb, have to reboot the host Windows Update just installed a .NET update and it's complaining.

Semi-related... I know Microsoft just closed the loophole to use Windows 7 and 8 keys on Windows 11, but Windows 10 keys still work right? Just seeing which key to buy (I'll have to buy 3 again and set it up Hybrid like you mentioned).

Archigos said:

I'll make sure to do that when I create the new one in a minute. The Enhanced thing if I remember correct had something to do with "Windows Hello" making log in a complete pain in the butt and you couldn't full screen properly... Sadly I have memory issues so I can't be more specific, but I can look up some of my old posts about it if you're interested. Anyway, brb, have to reboot the host Windows Update just installed a .NET update and it's complaining.

Click to expand...

Hyper-V works much better in enhanced mode but it is annoying that you cannot initially boot into it as you can't get to the login screen if Windows Hello is enabled.

This issue only arises if you set up installation with an MS account (of course a PITA to bypass that now).

However, it is easy to fix - switch to basic mode to login, then turn off Windows Hello, and then you can login in advanced mode and enjoy the enhanced mode features (primarily sound and better drive sharing - even a usb). Guest OS needs to have RDP Server Capability (so Home will only run in Basic mode and also most other non Windows OSs)

You can even pretty much remove need for entering password using netplwiz. At one time that did not work, but now it does although you may have to click on sign-in button.

Archigos said:

Semi-related... I know Microsoft just closed the loophole to use Windows 7 and 8 keys on Windows 11, but Windows 10 keys still work right? Just seeing which key to buy (I'll have to buy 3 again and set it up Hybrid like you mentioned).

Click to expand...

Not quite true - you can still use valid 7 keys at Change Product Key page.

cereberus said:

However, it is easy to fix - switch to basic mode to login, then turn off Windows Hello, and then you can login in advanced mode and enjoy the enhanced mode features (primarily sound and better drive sharing - even a usb). Guest OS needs to have RDP Server Capability (so Home will only run in Basic mode and also most other non Windows OSs)

Click to expand...

I'll give that a try... (My Host is Windows 11 Pro so no problems there)

cereberus said:

Not quite true - you can still use valid 7 keys at Change Product Key page.

Click to expand...

Good to know, but I need to buy new keys anyway since I ran out of 8.1 keys last year. (I technically have four 11 keys that are no longer used, but I don't have the written down anywhere to try them and they aren't linked properly to my Microsoft account.) So I'm going to buy 2 new keys and set up 2 VMs and not redo the third one.

Archigos said:

Is there a way to extract the Windows License out of a broken VM... if I can do that, I'll just delete it and create a new one....

Click to expand...

An activated Windows 10/11 Hyper-V VM is the same as any other machine. Its digital licence is stored on Microsoft's activation servers and linked to the (in this case virtual) hardware ID of the machine. Linking to your MS account is an optional extra, the hardware ID on the activation servers is the primary source of activation.

Do NOT delete an activated Hyper-V VM and create a new one, that is throwing away your digital licence. Instead keep it but remove all its attached drives, create a new virtual drive and attach that to the existing VM (this is the equivalent of replacing a dead drive on a real machine). Then you can clean install on its new drive and it will activate from the VM's existing digital licence.

Bree said:

An activated Windows 10/11 Hyper-V VM is the same as any other machine. Its digital licence is linked to the (in this case virtual) hardware ID of the machine.

Do NOT delete an activated Hyper-V VM and create a new one, that is throwing away your digital licence. Instead keep it but remove all its attached drives, create a new virtual drive and attach that to the existing VM (tis is the equivalent of replacing a dead drive on a real machine). Then you can clean install on its new drive and it will activate from the VM's existing digital licence.

Click to expand...

I've been waiting for you to chime in... I knew you'd let me know something awesome. Thank you... I hadn't started dealing with the VMs yet and thankfully haven't bought new keys yet either, so I'll just scrape the drives and do as you said.

As always, you're wonderful Bree. :)