Blogpost - Creating a Hyper-V VM running Evaluation versions of Windows server using PowerShell
Wrote a blogpost about how you can deploy Hyper-V VM's on your machine using PowerShell, below is the script which I made #Requires -RunAsAdministrator #Start a stopwatch to measure the deployment time $stopwatch = [System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch]::StartNew() #Detect if Hyper-V is installed if ((Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All -Online).State -ne 'Enabled') { Write-Warning ("Hyper-V Role and/or required PowerShell module is not installed, please install before running this script...") return } else { Write-Host ("Hyper-V Role is installed, continuing...") -ForegroundColor Green } #Retrieve all Server Operating System VHD links from the Microsoft Evaluation Center $totalcount = $null $urls = @( 'https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2012-r2', 'https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2016', 'https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2019', 'https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2022' ) #Loop through the urls, search for VHD download links and add to totalfound array and display number of downloads $ProgressPreference = "SilentlyContinue" $totalfound = foreach ($url in $urls) { try { $content = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -ErrorAction Stop $downloadlinks = $content.links | Where-Object { ` $_.'aria-label' -match 'Download' ` -and $_.'aria-label' -match 'VHD' } $count = $DownloadLinks.href.Count $totalcount += $count Write-host ("Processing {0}, Found {1} Download(s)..." -f $url, $count) -ForegroundColor Green foreach ($DownloadLink in $DownloadLinks) { [PSCustomObject]@{ Title = $content.ParsedHtml.title.Split('|')[0] Name = $DownloadLink.'aria-label'.Replace('Download ', '') Tag = $DownloadLink.'data-bi-tags'.Split('"')[3].split('-')[0] Format = $DownloadLink.'data-bi-tags'.Split('-')[1].ToUpper() Link = $DownloadLink.href } } } catch { Write-Warning ("{0} is not accessible" -f $url) return } } #Select VHD from the list $VHD = $totalfound | Out-GridView -OutputMode Single -Title 'Please select the VHD file to use and click OK' | Select-Object Name, Link if (($VHD.Name).Count -ne '1') { Write-Warning ("No VHD file selected, script aborted...") return } #Set VM Parameters $VMname = Read-Host 'Please enter the name of the VM to be created, for example W2K22SRV' if ((Get-VM -Name $VMname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).count -ge 1) { Write-Warning ("{0} already exists on this system, aborting..." -f $VMname) return } $VMCores = Read-Host 'Please enter the amount of cores, for example 2' [int64]$VMRAM = 1GB * (read-host "Enter Maximum Memory in Gb's, for example 4") $VMdir = (get-vmhost).VirtualMachinePath + $VMname $SwitchName = Get-VMSwitch | Out-GridView -OutputMode Single -Title 'Please select the VM Switch and click OK' | Select-Object Name if (($SwitchName.Name).Count -ne '1') { Write-Warning ("No Virtual Switch selected, script aborted...") return } #Create VM directory try { New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $VMdir -Force:$true -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Out-Null } catch { Write-Warning ("Couldn't create {0} folder, please check VM Name for illegal characters or permissions on folder..." -f $VMdir) return } finally { if (test-path -Path $VMdir -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) { Write-Host ("Using {0} as Virtual Machine location..." -f $VMdir) -ForegroundColor Green } } #Download VHD file to the VirtualMachinePath\VMname write-host ("Downloading {0} to {1}..." -f $vhd.Name, $VMdir) -ForegroundColor Green $VHDFile = "$($VMdir)\$($VMname)" + ".vhd" $VMPath = (Get-VMHost).VirtualMachinePath + '\' Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $vhd.Link -OutFile $VHDFile #Create VM with the specified values try { New-VM -Name $VMname -SwitchName $SwitchName.Name -Path $VMPath -Generation 1 -NoVHD:$true -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null } catch { Write-Warning ("Error creating {0}, please check logs and make sure {1} doesn't already exist..." -f $VMname, $VMname) } finally { if (Get-VM -Name $VMname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Out-Null) { write-host ("Created {0}..." -f $VMname) -ForegroundColor Green } } #Configure settings on the VM, CPU/Memory/Disk/BootOrder try { Write-Host ("Configuring settings on {0}..." -f $VMname) -ForegroundColor Green Set-VM -name $VMname -ProcessorCount $VMCores -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes 64MB -MemoryMaximumBytes $VMRAM -MemoryStartupBytes 512MB -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Out-Null Add-VMHardDiskDrive -VMName $VMname -Path $VHDFile -ControllerType IDE -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Out-Null } catch { Write-Warning ("Error setting VM parameters, check {0} settings..." -f $VMname) return } #The end, stop stopwatch and display the time that it took to deploy $stopwatch.Stop() Write-Host ("Done, the deployment took {0} hours, {1} minutes and {2} seconds" -f $stopwatch.Elapsed.Hours, $stopwatch.Elapsed.Minutes, $stopwatch.Elapsed.Seconds) -ForegroundColor Green For more information about it: https://powershellisfun.com/2022/06/01/creating-a-hyper-v-vm-running-evaluation-versions-of-windows-server-using-powershell/
