I just got a message from Microsoft alerting me that the final release of the Hyper-V virtualization software is now being offered on Windows Update.
By coincidence, I had just this morning manually updated my production Windows Server machine (a Dell Inspiron 530 quad-core box, previously discussed here, here, and here). I have a virtual machine running Windows Server under Hyper-V on that same machine, and when I checked Windows Update on that VM, I found the update files waiting for me:
This was one of the easiest, cleanest updates ever. I didn’t need to uninstall the Hyper-V release candidate (although I did have to reboot after completing the installation). If you’re using Hyper-V, be sure to update the Integration Services for each virtual machine. In both my Vista and Windows Server 2008 VMs, I received “unknown device” error messages at startup; a little digging revealed that the Virtual Machine Bus (VMBus) driver wasn’t being installed. Both VMs were using the release candidate version of the Integration Services components, which don’t work with the final Hyper-V release. The correct driver is installed (and the error messages stop) when the Integration Services components are updated.
This stuff is really slick and easy to use. Kudos to the team at Microsoft that put this out, and props to whoever made the decision to delay the final release for a few months to ensure that it worked properly. The wait was worth it.
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
I believe I heard (you had a ZDnet post) that this is going to be released at some point in the future as a standalone product. Is that still the plan and is there a date/price on that? Im currently using Virtual PC 2007 with an XP VM, but I’ve obviously heard good things about Hyper V 🙂
Dan, not sure what I said exactly, but this is the standalone product. It integrates tightly as a role with Windows Server 2008. It will not be available for any other current Windows version. There’s a chance it might show up in Windows 7, I suppose.
I guess I must have had the wrong idea, espically after rechecking that ZDNet post. What’s confusing though is that Wiki says “Hyper-V will also be available as a stand-alone offering, separate from Windows Server, as Microsoft Hyper-V Server,” but after reading other places about it, its definetely not the product that I initally thought it was.
According to the Availabily and Licensing Microsoft will be releasing a Stand-Alone version of Hyper-V called later in 2008, Microsoft Hyper-V Server (go fig).
The product will be priced at 28$ (really!) and is for bare-metal installs. I’m guessing it will be much like VMWare’s ESX (or would Win2008 w/ Hyper-V be analogous?).
Either way I updated my HyperV on my 2K8 box last night without any hiccups.
I meant CORE win2008 w/ hyperv be analogous to ESX in my previous post.
Les, that’s confusing press release. Here’s what’s really going on as I understand it.
Microsoft has to sell Hyper-V as a separate product to avoid getting in antitrust trouble. So they make it available as a bundle with some Windows Server versions and then sell some Windows Server versions without Hyper-V for $28 less. That’s a nominal fee, but still enough that they can say that a customer who doesn’t want it can choose not to have it. But it will not be sold as a separate product. It runs on Windows Server 2008 only.
My understanding is that you can indeed install Hyper-V on Windows Server Core, but I haven’t tested that yet.