Start networking and exchanging professional insights

Register now or log in to join your professional community.

Follow

What are Hyper-V Integration Components?

user-image
Question added by shady yehia , Supervisor , Ghabbour Group of Companies (GB Auto – GB Lease – Drive – Mashroey – GK
Date Posted: 2016/10/31
Vishnoo Sashidharan
by Vishnoo Sashidharan , System Support Associate , CompuCom CSI systems India Pvt LTD

Integration components are set of drivers and services which allow virtual machine to communicate with the host operating system.it help virtual machines to have a more consistent state and perform better by enabling the guest to use synthetic devices.

Akram Ahmed  Algaili
by Akram Ahmed Algaili , IT Infrastructure Manager , Al ‎Blagha ‎Industrial ‎

Integration components (also called integration services) are the set of synthetic drivers which allow a virtual machine to communicate with the host operating system

Tahseen Alaktaa
by Tahseen Alaktaa , CIO Chief Information Officer , ARTAR (AbduRahman Saad Al Rashid)

Integration components (also called integration services) are the set of synthetic drivers which allow a virtual machine to communicate with the host operating system.  They control services ranging from time sync to guest file copy.  We’ve been talking to customers about integration component installation and update over the past year to discover that they are a huge pain point during the upgrade process. 

Historically, all new versions of Hyper-V came with new integration components. Upgrading the Hyper-V host required upgrading the integration components in the virtual machines as well.  The new integration components were included with the Hyper-V host then they were installed in the virtual machines using vmguest.iso.  This process required restarting the virtual machine and couldn’t be batched with other Windows updates.  Since the Hyper-V administrator had to offer vmguest.iso and the virtual machine administrator had to install them, integration component upgrade required the Hyper-V administrator have administrator credentials in the virtual machines — which isn’t always the case.    

In Windows Technical Preview, all of that hassle goes away.  From now on, all integration components will be delivered to virtual machined through Windows Update along with other important updates. 

For the first time, Hyper-V integration components (integration services) are available through Windows Update for virtual machines running on Windows Technical Preview hosts.

There are updates available today as KB3004908 for virtual machines running:

  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows 8
  • Windows 7

The virtual machine must be connected to Windows Update or a WSUS server.  In the future, integration component updates will have a category ID, for this release, they are listed as Important KB3004908.

Again, these updates will only be available to virtual machines running on Windows Technical Preview hosts.

Ahmad Ali
by Ahmad Ali , Systems Engineer , King Saud University

Integration components are of two types: drivers and services. Hyper-V Integration Services optimizes the drivers of the virtual environments to provide users with better user experience.

More Questions Like This