How to Migrate VMware to Hyper-V (5): Configure SCVMM (1)

Now that you have deployed System Center Virtual Machine Manager, in this part of the guide, you’ll perform some post-installation configurations.

Some tasks include updating SCVMM to RU2, creating VMM groups, and adding the Hyper-V cluster you created in part 3 to SCVMM. After that, you’ll perform other tasks like adding the cluster File Server share as SCVMM Library.

Let’s begin!

Task 1: Create SCVMM Host Groups

1. Open the SCVMM console by clicking the shortcut on your desktop.
2. The “Use current Microsoft Windows identity” option is selected. Click Connect.

3. When the SCVMM console opens, click the Fabric menu. Then, on the Servers node, right-click All Hosts and choose Create Host Group.

Rename the host group to Hyper-V. Create another Host group called VMware.

You should now have the two Host Groups under All Hosts.

Task 2: Update Administrators Group in Hyper-V Hosts

To allow SCVMM to manage the Hyper-V hosts, we need to add the SCVMM service and “Run As” accounts to their local administrator’s group. To add the accounts to the administrators’ group, open PowerShell as administrator, then run this command on each Hyper-V host.

For Windows Server Core deployments, open PowerShell on each host from the Windows Admin Center and run the command. Alternatively, run the command below from the console of each Hyper-V host (not recommended).

Add-LocalGroupMember -Group "Administrators" -Member "labscvmm-sa", "labscvmm-ra"

Task 3: Create SCVMM “Run As” Accounts

In this task, you will create all the “Run As” accounts required in SCVMM. A Run As account is an account that you add to SCVMM to allow you to use it to perform tasks.

By adding Run As accounts, you can avoid entering the credentials whenever you need to use the account.

Task 3.1: Identify the “Run As” Accounts

Create the following Run As accounts in SCVMM:

1. The SCVMM “Run As” account that was created in AD – mine is scvmm-ra
   – This account will be used to add Hyper-V hosts to SCVMM
   – The account will also be used to add and Manage the vCenter server
   – If this account is not in your vCenter’s administrators group, add it now or add a separate account for adding and managing the vCenter server in VMM
   – We will also use this account to add and manage the cluster file server as a library server

See the account in my lab’s vCenter server.

2. The root account for ESXi hosts
   – The root account for ESXi hosts
   – If you use any other account to add your ESXi hosts to SCVMM, VMM V2V converter will fail

Task 3.2: Add the “Run As” Accounts

1. Click the VMM’s Settings menu (bottom left). Then, right-click Run As Account and select Create Run As Account.

2. On the details page, give the account a descriptive name and add a description. Finally, add the account username and password and click Finish.

If it is an AD account, enter the account in the format DomainNameAccountName. However, if it is a non-AD account, like ESXi root credentials, enter the username and the password – also uncheck “Validate domain credentials.”

Repeat the above steps for all “Run as” accounts. The screenshot below shows how to add the Run As account for ESXi hosts’ root credentials.

All accounts added should be in the VMM administrator group and also enabled. See my screenshot below.

Task 4: Add Hyper-V Cluster to SCVMM

Adding a Hyper-V cluster to SCVMM installs agents on its Hyper-V nodes. So, before you proceed, ensure that the “Run as” account you will use to add the cluster belongs to the local administrators’ group of the Hyper-V hosts.

You should be fine if you completed Task 2 earlier in this guide.

1. Click the Fabric node in SCVMM, then, on the Servers > All Hosts node, right-click the Hyper-V host group and point to “Add Hyper-V Hosts and Cluster.”

2. Then, on the Resource Location page, select the first option.

3. On the credentials page, click Browse and select the SCVMM Run As account you created earlier.

4. Enter the name of the Hyper-V cluster you created in part 3 of this guide. Mine is lab-cluster-2.

When you click Next, the wizard will search AD, find the cluster, then display it and the two Hyper-V hosts that are members of the cluster.

5. Check the checkbox next to the cluster name and click Next to progress to the next page.

6. Confirm the SCVMM host group to add the cluster and click Next.

6. Finally, review the settings and click Finish to add the Hyper-V cluster to VMM.

The wizard provides the PowerShell script whenever you perform a task in SCVMM. If you love PowerShell and want to automate the process later, copy the script by clicking the “View Script” button.

When you click Finish, VMM opens the Job view of the running job. Use the job window to monitor the tasks and review errors or warnings.

Regarding errors and/or warnings, the job window has an amber – warning on the Add virtual machine host sub-tasks. To review the warning, click on it.

You can read the warnings and recommended actions. I have two warning messages.

The first warning is that I did not install the MPIO role on the servers. I can safely ignore this warning since I am not using a storage device – like Fiber Channel – that requires MPIO.

Meanwhile, the second warning is that the hosts need a reboot. We will restart the hosts later.

Task 5: Install SCVMM Update Rollup 2

Before you install the SCVMM update, note the current version. See the screenshot below.

In part 1 of this guide, you created a folder called “SCVMM UR2” in the  “Hyper-VFiles” folder and downloaded SCVMM Update Rollup 2 into the folder. 

To extract the download update files, create two subfolders – R2Update, AdminCR2 – in “Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2”.

Modify the PowerShell script below and run it to create the subfolders.

$Path = “E:Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2”
"R2Update", "AdminCR2", "GuestAgentR2" | ForEach-Object {New-Item -Name $_ -Path $Path -ItemType Directory }

To extract the package, double-click it.

Then, right-click the file, select Extract, and save the extracted files to the folders created above.

Use the table below to extract the cab files to their respective subfolders:

Cab file name	Folder path
VMM_R2_Update	Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2R2Update
VMM_Admin_Console_R2_Update	Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2AdminCR2

Task 5.2: Install the Updates

Close the SCVM console before proceeding with this task

Install the updates – open cmd as administrator. Then, install the VMM server and console updates by running these two commands on the VMM server.

#Install the SCVMM Server Update Rollup 2
msiexec.exe /update "\IPMPHPV4Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2R2Updatekb5032369_vmmserver_amd64.msp"
#Install the SCVMM admin console Update Rollup 2
msiexec.exe /update "\IPMPHPV4Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2AdminCR2kb5032370_AdminConsole_amd64.msp"

If any of the commands fail, install the updates by double-clicking the MSI file.

After installing the updates, restart the VMM server.

Then, recheck the VMM server version, and it should show the version in my screenshot below. This version is SCVMM Roll Up 2.

Task 5.3: Add Registry with new Chunk Size on All Hosts

1. From your SCVMM server, navigate to the network share where you downloaded your installation files.
2. Then, right-click the registry key script in your downloaded file and select Edit. The script will open in PowerShell ISE.

2. Change the “” placeholder to the name of your VMM Server.

3. Open PowerShell as administrator, then set the execution policy and run the script with the commands below.

When you run the script with the third command, PowerShell will prompt you to confirm, enter R, and press enter.

#1. Set execution policy to allow downloaded scripts to run
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force
#2. Change Directory to the "SCVMM UR2" folder on the network share
cd "\IPMPHPV4Hyper-VFilesSCVMM UR2" #change the path to your share
#Execute the script
& '.Script To Add Registry with new Chunk Size On All Hosts.ps1'

While restarting the Hyper-V hosts, move the WAC and VMM VMs to a host and restart the next host. Then, when the host comes back online, move the two VMs again and restart the second host. If you have more than one host, restart the remaining ones. Use the Fail Over Cluster Manager if you can’t move the VMs in SCVMM due to the “Unsupported VM Configuration” error. We’ll fix this error later in Task 6.

4. Restart the Hyper-V Hosts.

For a Windows Server Core deployment, you can restart the hosts via VMM, Server Manager, or WAC.

Task 5.4: Update the VMM Agents on the Hyper-V Hosts

After running the above tasks, the status of the Hyper-V hosts in SCVMM will be shown as “Needs attention.” This is because the VMM agents on the hosts need to be updated.

Follow the steps below to update the agents:

1. Right-click the host and select Update Agent.

If the Update Agent button is grayed out, proceed to task 6.

2. Then, select the SCVMM Run As account to use to update the agent and click OK.

3. Wait for the job status to reach 100%, then right-click the host and choose Refresh.

Task 6: Fix “Unsupported VM Configuration” SCVMM Error

Sometimes, SCVMM displays the “Unsupported VM Configuration” message on a VM’s status. Follow the steps below to fix this issue.

1. Log in to the VM, which is displaying this error message. Then, search services and open the app.
2. Locate Windows Management Instrumentation, right-click it, and then select Restart. Choose Yes to restart dependent services.

3. Open the VM’s Settings in the Fail Over Cluster Manager, then disconnect any ISO images.

3. Head back to the SCVMM console and open PowerShell.

4. When the PowerShell console opens, it connects to the VMM server. Run the command below to force a refresh of the VM reporting the error.

You can also right-click the VM in the SCVMM console and select Refresh

Get-SCVirtualMachine -Name "IPMvVMM" | Read-SCVirtualMachine -Force

After completing the above steps, the VM’s status will display “Running.”

Task 7: Fix “Virtual switch ‘virtual switch’ is not highly Available” Error

During one of my Hyper-V on Server core deployments, SCVMM was logging the error message “Virtual switch ‘’ is not highly available because the switch in host ‘’ is not compatible with other hosts.“

To figure out what was causing the problem:

1. I opened PowerShell in SCVMM.

2. Then, on the PowerShell console, I ran the command below:

Get-SCVirtualNetwork | Sort logicalnetworks | ft name , logicalnetworks , VMHOST

The command result shows that the SCVMM logical switch created for the Hyper-V switch on the host in question was different.

When you add hosts to SCVMM, SCVMM creates logical networks with the same name as the Hyper-V virtual switch.

3. To fix the error, I opened the host’s Properties and navigated to the Hardware. Then, I located a virtual switch with the wrong SCVMM virtual network, unchecked the wrong logical network, and then checked the correct one.

4. Finally, navigate the Fabric > Logical Networks, right-click the wrong logical network and remove it.

If you receive an error message about the logical network being in use, delete it from the VM Network (VMs and Services > VM Networks) first.

Task 8: Add the Cluster File Server Share as a VMM Library

1. Click the Library node in the SCVMM console menu. After that, right-click Library Servers and choose Add Library Server.

2. On the Credentials page, click the Browser button and select the SCVMM “Run as” account.

3. Then, on the Select Library Server page, click the Search button.

4. Next, enter the name of the Cluster File Server you created in part 4 of this guide. If you used the name on this guide, it should be lab-vmm-lib.

Click search to find the host in AD, then click the Add button. SCVMM will display a notification that it will install an agent; click OK.

5. Confirm that the correct file server is displayed, then click OK to return to the previous page.

6. The Select Library Server page will display the file server as a cluster resource and the cluster nodes that may own it. To proceed, click Next.

7. On the next page, SCVMM will detect and display the share on the file server. Check the checkbox before the share name and the checkbox before “Add Default Resources.”

8. Finally, confirm the settings and click the Add Library Server button to add the server. To copy the PowerShell script, click View Script.

SCVMM will open the job, and it runs pretty fast. Click on the last job to view the details.

9. Close the job window to view the newly added Library server. The Library server and shared folders will be displayed in the Library Servers node.

Task 9: Optimize the VMM Library

After creating the VMM Library with the cluster file server’s share, you must perform some tasks to optimize the library.

Task 9.1: How to Open a VMM Library Share in File Explorer

Before you begin the optimization tasks, I wanted to show you how to open the share from VMM. To open the share for the VMM Library, right-click it and select Explore. The share will open in Windows Explorer.

If you followed this guide and performed all the tasks, you should have three folders in the VMMLibrary folder share.

Task 9.2: Tasks to Optimize a VMM Library

Follow the steps below to complete the optimization tasks:

1. Right-click the VMM library server and select Properties.

2. On the General tab, click the Host group drop-down and select Hyper-V.

3. For the next task, click the VM Networks tab, then check the checkbox next to the VM network. After configuring this setting, click OK to save the changes.

I have just one network for my home lab deployment. In production, you should have three networks here: the management/VM network, the Cluster, and the Live Migration traffic. Check the network you use for the management/VM network.

Well done for completing part 5 of this guide. You will perform further SCVMM configurations in part 6, Configure SCVMM (2).