Compare between Hyper-V Generation 1 and 2 Virtual Machines –
- Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V introduced a new virtual machine type: Generation 2. So we will discuss- What are the generations?
- What can the new generation do for you?
- Are there any reasons not to use it?
We are going to start with an overview of two virtual machine types separately:-
When you Create a new VM in Windows 2012R2 or later you will see to specify generations.
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See differences in G1 and G2 what added and what removed-
Removed: BIOS firmware, network adapter (based on Intel/Tulip 21140), IDE, floppy, DMA, i8042 keyboard, PS/2 mouse controllers, S3 video, PIT, PIC, Super I/O, PCI bus, speaker and more
Added: UEFI firmware, SCSI controller, new software-based DVD device and new network controller
Difference between Generation1 and Generation 2 properties in the above snapshot.
Benefits of generation 2 VM:
- Less attack surface and better security
- Less resources consumption in the parent partition of the hypervisor
- Faster guest OS boot and guest OS installation because no emulation needs to be done (UEFI firmware initializes faster than BIOS and generation 2 VM always use VM bus for I/O)
- New functionality for VMs: Secure boot (enabled by default), boot from a SCSI virtual hard disk, boot from a SCSI virtual DVD, PXE boot by using a standard network adapter, and UEFI firmware support
Disadvantages:
-
Generation 2 VMs can’t be used as virtual desktop templates
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No support of RemoteFX
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Limited support for guest OS: Only 64-bit versions of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 and higher (Linux family was not supported at the very beginning, but the situation has changed since then. Read more relevant information on Microsoft here.)
I don’t expect that many people will deploy the G2 VM on WS2012 R2 as the norm, but I could be wrong. Why?
Windows guest operating system support:
The following table shows which 64-bit versions of Windows you can use as a guest operating system for generation 1 and generation 2 virtual machines.
| 64-bit versions of Windows |
Generation 1 |
Generation 2 |
| Windows Server 2012 R2 |
✔ |
✔ |
| Windows Server 2012 |
✔ |
✔ |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 |
✔ |
✖ |
| Windows Server 2008 |
✔ |
✖ |
| Windows 10 |
✔ |
✔ |
| Windows 8.1 |
✔ |
✔ |
| Windows 8 |
✔ |
✔ |
| Windows 7 |
✔ |
✖ |
The following table shows which 32-bit versions of Windows you can use as a guest operating system for generation 1 and generation 2 virtual machines.
| 32-bit versions of Windows |
Generation 1 |
Generation 2 |
| Windows 10 |
✔ |
✖ |
| Windows 8.1 |
✔ |
✖ |
| Windows 8 |
✔ |
✖ |
| Windows 7 |
✔ |
✖ |
Thanks,
TechieFocus Team,
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