Server 2012 on the Acer PDC Laptop with Hyper-V

This is all about getting Hyper-V working on a laptop when SLAT is not available on your hardware.  Because not all of us can afford a new shiny laptop to support Client Hyper-V.

Now, here is the big warning;

This is Server, not Client – In the end, the experience is nearly identical.

This is a computer with Hyper-V running (it has –V or –VT on the chipset).  It works, but if you want the fancy Windows 8 Client experience, you will not get it here.

There is also an order to adding the Roles and Features.  This is not rocket science, just proper ordering.

Now, I did add an SSD to my PDC laptop and I am incredibly happy I did.

1. Install Windows Server 8
2. Get the needed drivers from the Acer website (the display will be horrible, the disk will be slow) - http://support.acer.com/drivers_download.aspx
   1. Intel Chipset driver
   2. Intel VGA driver (this is the only driver that is necessary)
   3. and you might need the wireless LAN driver (the wired NIC is definitely in the installer)
   4. I also grabbed the audio driver
3. Get that all working and patch the machine.
4. Add the following Features:
   1. Wireless LAN Service
   2. Media Foundation
   3. User Interfaces and Infrastructure
      1. Desktop Experience
   4. reboot
5. Now you can add the Hyper-V Role
6. If you need sound, be sure to enable the Windows Audio service (set it to automatic and start it if you need it right away)

Now you have your PDC Laptop – still useful – running Server 8 Hyper-V.

You can fully play with all the new PowerShell commands.  (well, isn’t that why you would want to do this!)

If you want the Marketplace, then you need to create a user account as you cannot use the built-in local administrator to access the marketplace.  Otherwise, it is all there – touchscreen, Metro experience, etc..