Win 2016 TP3 : Hot Add and Remove For Network Adapter and Memory

[Update 31 August 2015]

It is time to have a look on enhancement available for virtual machine hardware. Won’t it be great that we can hot add or remove hardware without shutting down virtual machine.

[ Memory ]
With Windows Server 2012 R2, we can decrease minimum memory and increase maximum memory when your virtual machine is configure to use dynamic memory. We love this feature however we cannot change the value when VM is configure to use static memory.


With Windows Server Technical Preview Windows 2016 TP3, the game has change and now you can adjust the amount of memory assigned to a virtual machine while it is running, even if you haven’t enabled Dynamic Memory. This works for both generation 1 and generation 2 virtual machines.

You can increase and decrease the memory easily in startup memory without shutdown virtual machine.
Note:-

• Guest operating system must be running Windows Server 2016 TP3

[ Network Adapter]
You can now add or remove a Network Adapter while the virtual machine is running, without incurring downtime. This works for generation 2 virtual machines running both Windows and Linux operating systems.
If you compare VM running in Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V, you will notice on Network Adapter, Button “Remove” is dimmed when VM running.


However, Button “Remove” is available when VM running in Windows Server Technical Preview   2016 TP3 which allow us to add/remove network adapter without need to shutdown the VM.

Note:-

• Only Generation 2 VM
• Work either Windows or Linux VM