Nesting Hyper-V 2012 R2 under ESXi

For a client project, we built out a nested Hyper-V server for replication purposes under VMware, works a treat but you need to make a few tweaks before the Hper-V role will install.

Deploy a new 2012 R2 VM, GuessOS as 2012/2012R2 depending on your version, upgrade to VM HW version 10.

Remove the VM from the VC inventory, download the .vmx and edit by adding the following lines. Then inventory:

vhv.enable = “TRUE”
hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = “FALSE”
mce.enable = “TRUE”

Replace the existing .VMX and the VM back to the VC, next edit the virtual machine, under CPU tick the “Expose hardware assisted virtualization to the guest OS” option.

Boot the VM and you can now install the Hyper-V role. If you get the error “cpu does not support virualization” on adding the Hyper-V role then hop on the web client and change the following two items: