Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Sandy Bridge Issue

Customers leveraging virtualization solutions from Microsoft that also upgraded their machines to use the new Sandy Bridge processors from Intel, might run into some issues when launching a virtual machine.

The software giant has confirmed a problem involving virtual machines failing to start on servers powered by Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs.

It appears that the glitch is accompanied by the following error message “<VM Name> could not initialize” being logged and displayed in Event Viewer.

According to the Redmond company, virtual machines running on servers with either Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and the new Sandy Bridge processors can be impacted by this issue.

At this point in time there are two solutions that customers can turn to in order to resolve the problem described above.

“•Option 1: Upgrade Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 which properly supports the new Sandy Bridge Processors. After installing Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, it adds support for the AVX instructions in the parent partition and within the virtual machine for guest operating systems.

•Option 2: Apply this hotfix to Windows Server 2008 R2. After installing this hotfix, it adds support for the AVX instruction in the parent partition, but does NOT present AVX instructions within the virtual machine for guest operating systems,” Microsoft’s Brian Lauge Pedersen stated.

Obviously, the best course of action is for customers to make the jump to SP1 RTM for Windows Server 2008 R2. Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 RTM is also available for download, links for both are at the bottom of this article.

If deploying SP1 is not yet a valid option, organizations can turn to the fix provided by Microsoft, but this should be regarded more of a temporary solution.

Sandy Bridge CPUs are the second generation Core i3/i5/i7 processors which were introduced earlier this year.

“An easy way to identify the new Sandy Bridge processors is that the processor models are 4 digits. For example, you’ll see processors such as the i7-2600k or i5-2500k and so on,” Pedersen added.

Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 RTM is available for download here.

Windows 7 SP1 RTM and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RTM are available for download here.