A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about the new Microsoft Hyper-V UEFI in Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10 virtual machines. With that version Microsoft also released a new Hyper-V VM configuration version 9.0. This is not unusual, the Hyper-V teams usually bumps up the version number from release to release, since new Hyper-V features are introduced. In the comments, the question came up, what is new in this version of the Hyper-V VM configuration, Since the version was still a preview release of Windows Server and Windows 10, Microsoft didn’t share the full list of features per configuration version. However, now the documentation is ready and you can find the documentation here.
Supported features
The following table shows the minimum virtual machine configuration version required to use some Hyper-V features.
| Windows Server | Windows 10 | Version | Feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 | Windows 10 1507 | 6.2 | Hot Add/Remove Memory |
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 | Windows 10 1507 | 6.2 | Secure Boot for Linux VMs |
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 | Windows 10 1507 | 6.2 | Production Checkpoints |
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 | Windows 10 1507 | 6.2 | PowerShell Direct |
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 | Windows 10 1507 | 6.2 | Virtual Machine Grouping |
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4 | Windows 10 1511 | 7.0 | Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) |
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5 | 7.1 | Virtual machine multi queues (VMMQ) | |
| Windows Server 2016 | Windows 10 Anniversary Update | 8.0 | XSAVE support |
| Windows Server 2016 | Windows 10 Anniversary Update | 8.0 | Key storage drive |
| Windows Server 2016 | Windows 10 Anniversary Update | 8.0 | Guest virtualization-based security support (VBS) |
| Windows Server 2016 | Windows 10 Anniversary Update | 8.0 | Nested virtualization |
| Windows Server 2016 | Windows 10 Anniversary Update | 8.0 | Virtual processor count |
| Windows Server 2016 | Windows 10 Anniversary Update | 8.0 | Large memory VMs |
| Windows Server 1803 | Windows 10 April 2018 Update | 8.3 | Increase the default maximum number for virtual devices to 64 per device (e.g. networking and assigned devices) |
| Windows Server 2019/1809 | Windows 10 October 2018 Update | 9.0 | Allow additional processor features for Perfmon |
| Windows Server 2019/1809 | Windows 10 October 2018 Update | 9.0 | Automatically expose simultaneous multithreading configuration for VMs running on hosts using the Core Scheduler |
| Windows Server 2019/1809 | Windows 10 October 2018 Update | 9.0 | Hibernation support |
Source: Microsoft Docs (Thanks to Rene Moergeli for the link)
How to list the supported VM configuration versions
You can list all supported VM configuration versions on your Hyper-V host using the Get-VMHostSupportedVersion cmdlet.
Get-VMHostSupportedVersion
If you want to see the version of a Hyper-V virtual machine, you can use Hyper-V Manager or the following PowerShell command:
Get-VMFull list of Hyper-V VM versions
Here you have a full list of VM configuration versions of Hyper-V VMs together with the operating system.
| Windows Client | Windows Server | Version |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Server 2008 | 1.0 | |
| Windows Server 2008 SP1 | 2.0 | |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 | 3.0 | |
| Windows 8 | Windows Server 2012 | 4.0 |
| Windows 8.1 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | 5.0 |
| Windows 10 1507 | Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 | 6.2 |
| Windows 10 1511 | Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4 | 7.0 |
| Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5 | 7.1 | |
| Windows 10 Anniversary Update | Windows Server 2016 | 8.0 |
| Windows 10 Creators Update | 8.1 | |
| Windows 10 Fall Creators Update | Windows Server 1709 | 8.2 |
| Windows 10 April 2018 Update | Windows Server 1803 | 8.3 |
| Windows 10 October 2018 Update | Windows Server 2019 / 1809 | 9.0 |
| Windows 10 May 2019 Update | Windows Server 1903 | 9.1 |
| Windows 10 May 2020 Update | Windows Server 2004 | 9.2 |
| Windows 10 May 2021 Update | 9.3 | |
| Windows 11 | Windows Server 2022 | 10.0 |
| Prerelease | Prerelease | 254.0 |
| Experimental | Experimental | 255.0 |
How to upgrade Hyper-V VM configuration version
Upgrading the Hyper-V VM version is pretty straight forward. If the VM is running on a host supporting a newer version of Hyper-V VMs, you can right click the virtual machine in the Hyper-V Manager and click on upgrade or you can run the Update-VMVersion PowerShell cmdlet.
Update-VMVersionI hope this blog was help full for understanding Hyper-V VM versions, let me know if you have any questions in the comments!
Tags: configuration, Feature, Host, Hyper-V, Hyper-V Version, Hyper-V VM configuration version, Hyper-V VM Version, Microsoft, PowerShell, Supported, version, Virtual Machine, VM, VM Configuration Version, VM Version, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Windows Server 2019 Last modified: March 13, 2019
I understand how to check for or manage configuration version from server-side, but how do i query a running vm to tell me which version it is. I need this information.
The article is helpful for seeing docs data but not helpful for updates…
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHostSupportedVersion
Name Version IsDefault
—- ——- ———
Microsoft Windows 10 Anniversary Update/Server 2016 8.0 False
Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update 8.1 False
Microsoft Windows 10 Fall Creators Update/Server 1709 8.2 False
Microsoft Windows 10 April 2018 Update/Server 1803 8.3 False
Microsoft Windows 10 October 2018 Update/Server 2019 9.0 True
Microsoft Windows 10 May 2019 Update/Server 1903 9.1 False
Microsoft Windows 10 May 2020 Update/Server 2003 9.2 False
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VM * | Format-Table Name, Version
Name Version
—- ——-
jstation-tunnel 9.0
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Update-VMVersion jstation-tunnel -Force
WARNING: No update was performed for the virtual machine “jstation-tunnel” because its configuration version is already
at the maximum level supported by this server. For clustered servers, the maximum supported configuration version can
be limited by the cluster functional level.