Hi All

I have successfully installed windows 8.1 and Hyper-V on my HP Probook 4540s having previously run Windows 8 but I have been totally unable to import any of my Generation 1 Virtual Machines as the wizard says no machine found. These all previously in Windows 8. is there a setting I have not found or is this a beta (preview) problem? If there is no work around I will have to revert to Windows 8.

Frank

  Have you tried to create a new vm using the existing .vhdx file?

  I don't have any pre-existing guests on this machine but will try to import one from the 2012 server later today.

  I would have expected your vms to still be available if you did an upgrade. As I said above, I did not have any pre-existing Hyper-V vms on this machine. I had been using VirtualBox. (My VBox vms were certainly still available after upgrade).

   You can only import a machine which has been exported. To import them now you would need to have exported them before you upgraded. If you did not, the wizard is correct in saying there are no machines to import.

Hyper-V V3, the one in Windows 8, can import VM's without a prior export.  It's quite a bit changed from earlier versions.

And yes, if the Win 8.1 install was an upgrade, it keeps the existing VM's that are already in the Hyper-V Manager.

The import for Hyper-V v3 in Windows 8 is a little picky about just which folder you select.  Drill down each level into your VM's folder structure and try it until it works basically.  I was able to import with Windows 8.1 from the level about the folder that contains "Virtual Machine" and "Virtual Hard Disks", but you may have to go to the "Virtual Machines" level or lower when importing an older VM.

Thanks for experimenting. I find it odd that things that imported into 8.0 won't into 8.1

I can confirm that upgrading did maintain installed VMs but the only way I can import (so far) into 8.1 is to export a machine from my upgraded 8.1 machine.

The machine I am trying to import are Microsoft Training Machines (Yes I know they were designed to install into Windows Server 2008 R2) but they were importable into 8.0 but fail into 8.1

Just hope the final release will be less picky

Frank

I have found my own solution all be it a tedious one.

I built a Windows Server 2012 machine and activated Hyper-V (I believe a Windows 8.0 with Hyper-V would also have worked)

Installed the virtual machines from the Microsoft installation disks

Exported the Machines to a USB Drive. I found that it made no difference if I powered up the VMs before exporting them. It seems that all that was required is to install them into Server 2012 Hyper-V and then export them.

Imported the VM into Windows 8.1 and they imported correctly.

As a trial I also exported the Machines from Windows Server 2008 R2 but these machines would not import into Windows 8.1

I trust that this will be resolved by the installation wizard before the full release

Frank

Hi,

Glad you have found the solution. Thanks for sharing. We really appreciate your time and efforts. Hope your experience will help other community members facing similar problems.

Regards,

I have found my own solution all be it a tedious one.

I built a Windows Server 2012 machine and activated Hyper-V (I believe a Windows 8.0 with Hyper-V would also have worked)

Installed the virtual machines from the Microsoft installation disks

Exported the Machines to a USB Drive. I found that it made no difference if I powered up the VMs before exporting them. It seems that all that was required is to install them into Server 2012 Hyper-V and then export them.

Imported the VM into Windows 8.1 and they imported correctly.

As a trial I also exported the Machines from Windows Server 2008 R2 but these machines would not import into Windows 8.1

I trust that this will be resolved by the installation wizard before the full release

Frank

Thanks Bill and Bob

I now understand the problem and the solution

Frank