Windows Server Summit 2026 | Part 3: The future of Hyper-V: what we're building and why
Krähe mit Hut
Hyper-V has now matured into a fully-fledged virtualization platform and no longer needs to shy away from the competition. Microsoft is currently investing heavily in new features and revamping aspects that could work better.
This article highlights all the new features in Hyper-V and also provides recommendations regarding current developments related to the hardware in use.
Hyper-V Architecture Advanced
Under this heading, the presenter provides an in-depth look at the architecture of Hyper-V and how it works in detail. It’s definitely worth watching this session yourself if you’re interested in how Hyper-V works!
A feature that I, at least, was not yet familiar with is demonstrated there in detail: Hyper-V host CPU resource management, known as “minroot” for short. This has been available since Windows Server 2016, but is not enabled by default, as the configuration depends on the specific hardware setup. It therefore makes sense to explore this in depth and configure minroot appropriately for your own environment.
Various improvements have already been added to give virtual machines the most direct access possible to the physical hardware. The next step is the “direct virtualization” feature. This actually enables direct access bypassing the hypervisor. As a result, the performance of a virtual machine is nearly comparable to that of a physical deployment.
Hyper-V and heterogeneous processors
Intel uses cores with different purposes in its processors:
- P-core: performance-oriented
- E-core: efficiency-oriented
While Hyper-V supports the processors themselves, it does not support the different purposes of the cores. Therefore, Microsoft recommends disabling the efficiency-oriented cores. VMware also recommends this, so this should not be viewed as a specific “issue” with Hyper-V. If the cores are not disabled, Hyper-V will still function. However, system performance will then no longer be predictable and may vary.
Windows Server Secure Boot certificates and Hyper-V
Microsoft has clarified that the expiration of Secure Boot certificates will not cause systems to fail. These systems will continue to boot and run, albeit with reduced security. Additionally, future security updates will not be applicable to such systems.
Further guidance will be provided on the correct procedure for updating certificates for Windows Server. So if there are still any uncertainties here, it may be worth watching the session.
Windows Server vNext and Trusted Launch
The next version of Windows Server includes a new security measure for system startup. This is called “Trusted Launch” and uses a combination of UEFI Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, and measured boot and host attestation. With this feature, Microsoft aims to improve security while also making it easier to use these features.
For example, using virtual TPM modules for virtual machines in conjunction with live migrations actually requires the deployment of the Host Guardian Service (HGS) in conjunction with shielded VMs. However, this is disproportionate due to the high level of complexity involved.
Hyper-V-VMs and Windows Server vNext
One interesting new feature concerns the Key Management Service (KMS), which is used to activate Windows systems and Office products. Since attackers have now begun exploiting the KMS as well, it will gain support for TPM and Secure Boot, similar to Entra Connect Sync.
In addition, Generation 2 will be the default setting for new virtual machines going forward. The following improvements are being introduced:
- More virtual CPUs (2048 instead of 64)
- Better storage performance
- Secure Boot and TPM support
- UEFI firmware (older BIOS version will be removed)
- Hot-adding network adapters
Hyper-V storage
Native connectivity to NVMe storage has recently become available, allowing virtual machines to be deployed on it. This significantly improves performance.
In the future, improvements to NVMe connectivity will be added in the form of NVMe-oF over TCP/RDMA. This will enable access to storage systems via standard Ethernet components, eliminating the need for specialized hardware.
Hyper-V management
Hyper-V platforms can now be effectively managed using the Windows Admin Center virtualization mode. Another post discusses this feature in detail.
Hyper-V Replica
The “Hyper-V Replicas” feature has been somewhat neglected until now. It is used, for example, by the Azure Site Recovery service to replicate virtual machines to Azure for disaster recovery scenarios. The feature can also be used to replicate virtual machines locally between different clusters and hosts.
However, Microsoft is now introducing several improvements here as well:
- The GUIDs previously used for replicas are being replaced with more readable display names
- Replications can also be set up to IP destinations (eliminating the previously mandatory requirement for DNS resolution)
- The Capacity Planner comes with new features, such as automatic detection of the workload to be replicated, IOPS and scaling predictions, etc.
- Error analysis is made easier through improved logging and monitoring
- Replication intelligence is enhanced using checkpoints and QoS (previously, errors triggered a complete resynchronization); priorities can also be defined for VMs
- GPU-partitioned virtual machines and those with trusted boot can be replicated
- In the future, SMB (including in conjunction with RDMA) will be used for replication instead of HTTP to improve performance
- The RPO window is currently approximately 30 seconds and is intended to be reduced to a significantly lower value for highly critical use cases
The next 5 years
Microsoft provides an overview of what is planned for the next five years:
- Platform management via Azure only
- Support for OVA and OVF (VMware) file formats
- Guest management via Azure Arc
- v2 for cluster-aware updating
- Azure Virtual Desktop deployment (planned for the end of the year)
- Use of AI features
- Support for new graphics processing units (GPUs)
- Support for NVMe storage for virtual machines
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