Hyper-V Windows 11 Home - Risk?

There are certainly many situations where a particular hypervisor, or at least type of hypervisor is going to make a huge performance difference. However, if you are just experimenting with some other OS's, or trying out a test, or proving a theory, I've found that 9 times out of 10, a VM under pretty much any solution is sufficient to get the job done. If it's not, then you probably have very specific requirements that you already are aware of and would use a more suitable solution.

I'd try virtualbox and see if it works satisfactorily for you. If it does, why bother spending more money with MS on a license for the Pro version of Windows for features you may or may not really need.

pparks1 said:

There are certainly many situations where a particular hypervisor, or at least type of hypervisor is going to make a huge performance difference. However, if you are just experimenting with some other OS's, or trying out a test, or proving a theory, I've found that 9 times out of 10, a VM under pretty much any solution is sufficient to get the job done. If it's not, then you probably have very specific requirements that you already are aware of and would use a more suitable solution.

I'd try virtualbox and see if it works satisfactorily for you. If it does, why bother spending more money with MS on a license for the Pro version of Windows for features you may or may not really need.

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Fair statements.

cereberus said:

Well I have an Intel system and Hyper-V surely performs better by a mile.

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Yes Hyper-V performs well on all systems..no questions about that.

cereberus said:

Re. operating mode for vb, I admit I have no idea but a user should not really even have to select different modes.

It is certainly not something obvious - perhaps you could kindly tell me (us) what the mode differences are and how to select them, and I (we) can try them (for me on an Intel device).

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When you run VB, you can check the logs, which method it used. Here they are in performance order.

HM = VT-x/AMD-V -> full acceleration
NEM = Native Emulation -> uses MS hypervisor platform
CPUM = Emulation of CPU -> very slow

It is not obvious which one will be used until you check the logs. There is also a lot of descrepancy between VB versions. If you had WSL installed it is likely using NEM or CPUM. there is also huge difference between Windows, Linux and MacOS host, but that is irrelevant in this case since OP uses Windows. But Windows is often the slowest for some reason.

And YES a type 1 HV is always faster than type 2 but the difference can be very small...

You seem to talk a lot about Vbox., but what about VMware, there is free version too. You guys don't like it?
@cereberus , @SlicEnDicE , @pparks1 , @Bree

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Yes there is, but VMWare Workstation Player is very limited in what you can do, though it performs well. Thus many don't even bother to mention it. Pro version on the other hand is brilliant.

For a Windows host HYPER-V runs better (by far) than VMWare - wks or player - and definitely better than Oracle's vbox. There are limitations though in using HYPER-V such as dynamic re-direction of usb devices and some have reported getting audio to work on a Linux VM. Also Hyper-V is a bit "splodgy" if you want to run older OS'es such as XP / Win2000 / Win 98.

On a Linux Host KVM/QEMU performs far better than VMWare / Vbox running any sort of Guests.

Networking sometimes is easier to set up with Vmware than in Hyper-V especially for Host / Guest communication but whether on Hyper-V or KVM/QEMU one can usually get networking fixed with a bit of fiddling with the config files.

(I've all INTEL systems and performance whether on Linux or Windows hosts is fine using HYPER-V or KVM/QEMU).

I still run XP as a VM as I have some software and hardware that cuts Vinyl discs from your own music, and a professional level minidisc recording machine (those didn't have all that DRM stuff that the domestic models had which was the main downfall of minidiscs compared to CD's which could be copied without issues).

I also have a 35 mm negative scanner (runs on XP) and an HP engineering plotter - also needs XP to run.

Cheers
jimbo

SlicEnDicE said:

Yes there is, but VMWare Workstation Player is very limited in what you can do, though it performs well. Thus many don't even bother to mention it. Pro version on the other hand is brilliant.

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There are some features in the "Free version" that are hidden in that you can only get at those by editing the config files manually (the vmx file is an xml file - use any text editor or even a browser to edit those) -- e.g boot to firmware (you have to edit the file each time you want to boot from the firmware as it only works once before "disabling it again" and for connecting physical discs.


For boot to firmware :

bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

note you need todo this before every boot that you want to start in the firmware -- e.g to change boot disk etc.

For adding delay to the boot startup -- sometimes on a fast machine you don't get a chance to hit any key when an iso boot wants you to press a key to continue.

bios.bootDelay = "xxxx" (xxxx in millisecs)

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Also Hyper-V is a bit "splodgy" if you want to run older OS'es such as XP / Win2000 / Win 98.

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I have an XP VM in Hyper-V, seems to run OK. I don't know about 2000, and I don't think Hyper-V can even run that last one, Windows '98. Hyper-V certainly can't run Windows '95 (I know, I've tried) and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 is a definite non-starter. Both of those I can run (and use on my network) with VirtualBox.

Anaksy said:

You seem to talk a lot about Vbox., but what about VMware, there is free version too. You guys don't like it?
@cereberus , @SlicEnDicE , @pparks1 , @Bree

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For me the deciding factor is that Macrium's viBoot only supports using Hyper-V or VirtualBox to run a Macrium Reflect image as a virtual machine.

In Hyper-V
Yes by trial-and-error we know pretty much what runs and doesn't.
Win 9x, all the same, no go.

Bree said:

I have an XP VM in Hyper-V, seems to run OK. I don't know about 2000, and I don't think Hyper-V can even run that last one, Windows '98.

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XP: runs well indeed. SP3 tested.
Win 2000: runs surprisingly well, SP4 tested.
Win 98: nope, he's dead Jim.

I dont care for hyper V. I exclusively use vmware workstation player free and its awesome. I recommended it over anything else. It has better performance in graphics and games etc. vs the others I have tried so I stick with it. It is really easy to use and has some really nice features. I like how it handles usb devices as well, and I just in general find it more reliable.

But thats my personal opinion.

Yeah it helps a lot that you can assign up to 2GB of graphics memory to VMWare VMs and you get that 3D acceleration.

Anaksy said:

You seem to talk a lot about Vbox., but what about VMware, there is free version too. You guys don't like it?
@cereberus , @SlicEnDicE , @pparks1 , @Bree

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VMware is great as well. I use vSphere at work. At a previous employer who paid for VMWare Workstation for me, I used that product a lot then. When I moved on from that job, i couldn't really justify the cost of VMWare Workstation for myself...and I started using Virtual Box and it worked great for what I needed to do. I felt that VBox had more features than the free VMWare player application, so I just continued to use it.

I made the switch over to Hyper-V as I was utilizing WSL and needed Docker Desktop and those both required the use of Hyper-V components on the box which interfered with Vbox..... Since I pay for the Pro version of Windows, it just kinda makes sense to use the pro features like Hyper-V. I don't think it works nearly as well with the Linux distros as Vbox did, it works well enough for me to get the job done.

I decided to use VMware. I used to used back on university, for development. I always preferred to have a separate environment. Development sometimes implies on installing a lot of things on the pc, so I wanted to keep my laptop "clean".
So far it is working fine, but If I see I need more performance, I will pay the Windows Pro and try Hyper V.
Thank you all for the responses!