Yesterday, Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 Preview build 15002 for Insiders on the Fast ring, bringing with it a number of new features, along with a few known issues as well. One of the improvements noted in the change log of this build was related to Hyper-V. Microsoft has now detailed this change in a new blog post.
Microsoft is making it easier and quicker to create virtual machines. Users will be able to access this feature in Hyper-V by using the "Quick Create" button, as shown in the photo above. Triggering this will allow your PC to set up the required environment, complete with virtual hardware, for the guest operating system automatically and efficiently. The company also says that since many users see internet in virtual machines as integral, it has also added the option to directly create an external switch. .
Microsoft has also introduced more aggressive memory allocation for starting virtual machines in Windows 10. Previously, Hyper-V allocated memory very conservatively, so much so that even if the Task Manager showed 2GB of free memory, it wouldn"t utilize it for creating virtual machines. Similarly, it wouldn"t require applications to release unused memory. This is set to change in Windows 10 with the latest Insider Preview build 15002. The company says that:
[In] Windows 10, you’re probably running several applications (web browsers, text editors, chat clients, etc) and most of them will reserve more memory than they’re actively using. With these changes, Hyper-V starts allocating memory in small chunks (to give the operating system a chance to trim memory from other applications) and will use all available memory (no root reserve). Which isn’t to say you’ll never run out of memory but now the amount of memory shown in task manager accurately reflects the amount available for starting virtual machines.
That said, Microsoft does point out that people using Hyper-V with device emulators in Visual Studio still need at least 200MB more RAM than what the emulator is suggesting. The company plans to reveal more details regarding aggressive memory allocation in Hyper-V as well as other changes soon.