As you all know, Hyper-V uses microkernelized hypervisor, which means that when you install Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008, it “sits” beneath Windows Server 2008 home operating system. Windows Server 2008 now acts as a “virtual” operating system, it is in the same level (ring) with other guest operating systems (see picture on the left). For this, you need to have hardware that supports hardware assisted virtualization, but what if you want to have Hyper-V on Hyper-V solution?
I could install it directly on my laptop, but then I wouldn’t be able to show how to manage it remotely because I don’t have another computer.
So, I created two virtual machines in Hyper-V environment (I already had Windows Server 2008 R2 RC installed as dual-boot with Windows 7); one virtual machine was Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RC and another virtual machine was Windows Server 2008 R2 RC that I planned to use for remote administration. I connected from Hyper-V Manager that I installed in virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 RC to Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RC, and I succesfully created virtual machine. But what happens when you try to start that virtual machine? It fails! It fails with the following error:
I could install it directly on my laptop, but then I wouldn’t be able to show how to manage it remotely because I don’t have another computer.
So, I created two virtual machines in Hyper-V environment (I already had Windows Server 2008 R2 RC installed as dual-boot with Windows 7); one virtual machine was Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RC and another virtual machine was Windows Server 2008 R2 RC that I planned to use for remote administration. I connected from Hyper-V Manager that I installed in virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 RC to Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RC, and I succesfully created virtual machine. But what happens when you try to start that virtual machine? It fails! It fails with the following error:
An error occured while attempting to start the selected virtual machine(s).
“New Virtual Machine” could not initialize.
Failed to create partition: Access to the specified object was denied (0xC0350006)
The reason is simple, and it is written in the last line: Hyper-V cannot create partition, because “hardware” doesn’t support it. And you have to remember that it doesn’t have direct access to hardware, because this Hyper-V (in my case Hyper-V Server, but it can be another installation of Windows Server 2008) is in virtual environment, and there is another Hyper-V hypervizor beneath it.
The funny thing about this was scene after the lecture. I knew that I can’t start this virtual machine, so I didn’t, but Marin Frankovic and Robert Petrunic asked me: how did you manage to have Hyper-V on Hyper-V? I said: I didn’t, I just created new virtual machine, I didn’t start it 
. Cheater!
. Cheater!