Understanding the 'Clipboard' menu under Hyper-V

With Hyper-V the Virtual Machine Connection window has a menu titled 'clipboard'.  This menu brings two of my favorite features from Virtual PC to the server world.  Unfortunately these features caused some confusion under Virtual PC - so we have tried to make this better for Hyper-V.  Under this menu there are two entries:

• Type clipboard text.

  On Virtual PC this used to just be 'paste' but that is not the right description for what actually happens.  When you select this option the Virtual Machine Connection will take any text that is currently in the physical computers clipboard and pretend to type it on the keyboard of the virtual machine. 

  The downside to this approach is that we can only paste text (no graphics, etc...).  The upside to this approach is that it allows you to paste text at any time - no matter what the guest operating system is - or what it is doing.  One place where I often use this is to enter serial numbers for Windows when I am installing it. 

  One final word of warning - text is literally 'typed on the keyboard' - so if you try to copy and paste a large amount of text you might have to wait for a while for it to catch up.

• Capture screen.
  On Virtual PC this used to be 'copy'.  Selecting this option will take a screen shot of the guest operating system and place it in the physical computer's clipboard.  This is very handy for catching screen shots of things like operating system installation - where a screen shot utility is usually not available.

As a side note - if you want to get a screen shot of a running virtual machine (including the Virtual Machine Connection window) just press your release key combination (CTRL + ALT + LEFT ARROW by default) and then press ALT + PRTSCN.  Click back in the Virtual Machine Connection window to keep on using the guest operating system afterwards.

Cheers,
Ben

• Anonymous
  January 15, 2008
  How does typing handle non-ASCII chars?

• Anonymous
  October 14, 2010
  I have trouble with the Type Clipboard function For example when i copy on physical machine the url of this article: blogs.msdn.com/.../understanding-the-clipboard-menu-under-hyper-v.aspx when i use the Type Clipboard function this string is typed on the VM httpM!!blogs:,sdn:co,!b!virtuql°pc°guy!qrchive!éàà_!à&!&(!understqnding)the)clipboqrd),enu)under)hyper)v:qspx Is there any better solution to paste (and copy) text to (from) a VM ?

• Anonymous
  November 10, 2010
  To capture screen in clipboard of the virtual machine : go to full screen mode (Ctrl Alt Break) than fn+print screen.

• Anonymous
  February 23, 2011
  Hello there, I am trying to alt-Printscreen on my virtual fedora OS and need to paste it on my physical windows word document. Everything I have been trying is only letting me put it to the clipboard on openoffice and not to my windows word doc. What am I doing wrong! Please help! Thankyou

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2012
  This is a very good example of decaying Usability standards at Microsoft: they took something that used to work under Virtual PC and butchered it beyond recognition under Hyper-V. Or maybe it is just a technical impossibility to do what VPC does under Hyper-V, such as drag-and-drop between host and guest. If so, just admit it won't work instead of mocking it up with a stupid "Clipboard" menu that only confuses things. Also, are you being facetious when you said "Unfortunately these features caused some confusion under Virtual PC - so we have tried to make this better for Hyper-V."? It is exactly the other way around: it worked perfectly under VPC and now it does not under Hyper-V.

• Anonymous
  June 19, 2012
  So how can I copy text from a virtual machine to the host?

• Anonymous
  June 30, 2012
  There is a limit on number of characters one can paste on clipboard. One cannot type large amounts of text, if needed. There have been few cases where we have to type registry data and we have to do it 4-5 lines at one time. Pls avoid this in next release.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2012
  So to repeat Javier's question: So how can I copy text from a virtual machine to the host?  Ben, can you help here?

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2012
  How can i copy from the Guest OS to the Host OS?

• Anonymous
  November 09, 2012
  +1 to Javier's question - I can't copy text out of the guest to the host :-( I'm now having to paste text in the guest into a file on a shared folder - painful!

• Anonymous
  November 14, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 11, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 17, 2013
  Basic Copy and Paste Features between client + host which should work, aren't working in Windows 8.

• Anonymous
  June 03, 2013
  Hyper-V client is only for very basic virtual machine maintenance (troubleshooting network problems, quick shutdown etc.). Once the VM is set-up correctly, you are supposed to access it through your network via RDP tool (Remote Desktop) which has full clipboard capabilities, drag&drop of files etc...  

• Anonymous
  June 03, 2013
  THIS IS THE ANSWER: 'Remote Desktop Connection' is the application for seamless work with Hyper-V virtual machines and with proper Hyper-V setup, even other people on the network can work this way with your VM, too... do not blame poor Hyper-V client, it serves well for local access when your Virtual Machine is unreachable on the network so you can fix the issues and for NOTHING ELSE think! :)

• Anonymous
  July 10, 2013
  Still waiting on a good answer to this: So how can I copy text from a virtual machine to the host?

• Anonymous
  September 23, 2013
  Hey guys,  If you want to copy data from the client VM to the parent OS, I wrote about how to accomplish this on my blog:  foxdeploy.com/.../sharing-files-with-a-non-hyper-v-r2-vm  It isn't perfect, but it works, and you can even use this method on locked down domain clients that can't just copy and paste to a local share.

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2013
  There is a very simple scenario where you CAN'T use RDP: Cisco VPN Client blocks network access, so if you sandbox your VPN-Dial-In system in a Hyper-V VM, you're stuck with the Hyper-C console. Without the clipboard, copying data betewen guest and host is a real pain.

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2014
  I need to exchange files between the host and guest OS's. This post is misleading.

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2014
  @Jordan Mills As the "developer" said, use the Microsoft RDP (MSTSC) instead, then you can cut n paste text and files. Works fine for me in Win8.1 Hyper-V

• Anonymous
  April 15, 2015
  I don't understand something. Why is there a limit on the number of characters that can be pasted? I had to write something that reads a text file on the virtual machine to get around the silly text limits. So, i'm just wondering, what the heck is the big deal? It's a silly limitation if you think  about it.

• Anonymous
  June 23, 2015
  On an Ubuntu 14.04 Desktop this isn't working. I am copying text on the Hyper-V host, then selecting the Type Clipboard Text option and the application (a form in Firefox) fails to "receive"

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2015
  I was so excited about Hyper-V in Windows 10 only to find out it doesn't support copy and paste. VMware has done this for years. I hate it when I find out that core features are missing or very difficult to get working.

• Anonymous
  October 27, 2015
  Apparently after 7? years MS still hasn't found a way to get copy/paste of text between Windows and an Ubuntu VM.  Clipboard/"Type clipboard text" doesn't even work.

• Anonymous
  March 24, 2016
  Do you know, is there a way that I can tell the virtual machine to use its own clipboard?Like when I log into another machine using windows remote desktop, I can change the settings to say, "please use the remote computer's clipboard ONLY". Does that make sense what I am trying to do? Basically, I don't want a 'shared clipboard'. I want my physical computer and the virtual machine using their own clipboards.