Gavin’s Technology Weblog

Windows Server 2008 - Hyper-V Release Candidate: How to upgrade beta

Microsoft have just made the first releae candidate available for their Virtualisation plaform, namely Hyper-V.  Details of the release can be found here.  You can download the update here.

Unfortunatly there is no direct upgrade path from the Beta version.  This means that you will have to recreate your VM’s.  Its not as bad as you think.  Your disks (VHDs) will still work … you just have to recreate your VMs in Hyper-V and point to your disks.  One thing to note though, I reckon your snapshots might not work … but Ive yet to test that.

To upgrade try the following:

1. Shutdown all VMs gracefully.
2. Remove the Hyper-V role from your Windows Server 2008 x64.
3. Reboot
4. Install the update
5. Add the Role back again
6. Re-create your VMs and point them at your original VHDs.

All going well the upgrade from RC to RTM should be a simple process.