It’s been a couple of days since Microsoft announced it’s customer preview of it’s upcoming Windows 8. In the shades of it’s customer preview Microsoft also presented it’s new server product: Windows Server 8 beta.

As a VMware (virtualization) junkie I think you should always look at what the competition is offering. So I downloaded the Server 8 beta (Download here) and wanted to get it working within a VM in VMware Fusion on my Mac Book Pro (MBP).

I’ll do a step by step guide getting everything up and running.

First you’ll have to make sure you have the windows server 8 beta ISO on your MBP, as well as VMware Fusion (download a 30-day trial here). I will not do the Fusion install, but this is a straight forward process so you should be able to get it up and running in no time.

So let’s start with installing Windows server 8:

First of all open VMware fusion and Select the Create New VM:

In the Introduction screen press continue:

In the installation media screen select the choose a disc or disc image:

In the Choose a disc or Image window select the Windows server 8 Beta ISO and press open:

In the Choose operating System screen select Microsoft Windows as OS and Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 as Version and Press Continue:

At the Finish screen press Customize Settings:

There will be a pop-up to save the VM. Choose a VM Name (step 1) the VM location (step 2) and press Save (step 3)

In the Settings screen press Processors and Memory to give your VM extra resources:

In the Processor and Memory screen edit the settings as you wish (2 CPU and 4096 MB RAM in my case) After that press close:

Now we’ll start the Windows Server 8 Beta installation. Press the big Play button:

The Installation process starts and the first screen is the language settings. Choose your settings and press Next:

In the next screen press the Install Now button:

In the select the OS you want to install screen select the Server with a GUI option, and press the Next button:

In the which type of installation do you want screen press on Custom:

In the where do you want to install windows screen, select the right drive (if needed) and press Next:

After the installation is finished enter the administrator password (twice) and press finish:

The next screen will ask you to do a Ctrl+Alt+Del, with no del key on a MBP you have two options. Option 1 is explained in the screenshot below. The other one is to press the fn+ctrl+alt+backspace keys at once:

In the following screen enter your password and press enter:

Accept the Windows error Reporting Privacy Statement:

After this it’s time to setup Hyper-V. In the Server Manager Dashboard (startup screen) choose the local server and from the Manage drop down menu choose Add Roles and Features:

In the before you begin window check the “Skip this by default” box and press next:

In the installation type window, choose role-based or feature-based installation and click Next:

In the Server Selection Screen select your server and Click Next:

In the Server Roles screen Check the Hyper-V box:

In the Hyper-V pop-up screen check the “include management tools” box and click Add Features:

There will be another pop-up saying Hyper-V can’t be installed because a hypervisor is already installed:

To solve this problem we have to edit the vmx file, and do some additional settings. To shutdown the press Fn+Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, then press the power button and shut down:

After the VM is shutdown we need to open the VMX file. Go to the VM in the VM Library and enter the Server 8 VM’s Menu. Hold the Alt key and press “open config file in editor”:

In the VMX file add the following lines:

vhv.enable = “TRUE”
hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = “FALSE”
mce.enable = “TRUE”

Close the file and Right click the VM again and press settings:

In the setting screen press advanced:

IN the Advanced screen select “Intel VT-x with EPT” from the Preferred virtualization engine and press close:

Close all windows and restart the VM. After the restart re-open the Add Roles installation and check the Hyper-V box again:

In the Virtual Switches box check one (or more) network adapter boxes and press Next:

In the Confirmation screen Check the restart option box, confirm yes in the pop-up and click finish to install the Hyper-V role:

After the installation and restart open the hyper-V manager and create a new VM:

That’s it, you’re done! Good luck running Hyper-V within a Fusion VM. If you’ve any question, just leave a message.