Updated Hypervisor Top Level Functional Specification

  • Article

We have recently published a new version of the Hypervisor Top Level Functional Specification for Windows Server 2012 R2 / Windows 8.1.  You can grab a copy here:

https://download.microsoft.com/download/A/B/4/AB43A34E-BDD0-4FA6-BDEF-79EEF16E880B/Hypervisor Top Level Functional Specification v4.0.docx

Now, when you first open this document and start looking through it – you are probably going to think to yourself “Good grief! This is much too detailed for me!”.  And yes, it is a very technical document.  It is essentially a guide to how to build your own virtualization solution on our hypervisor.  That said, a couple of times a year I direct people to read this document so they can get answers to questions such as:

  • Can I discover the hypervisor version from inside the virtual machine?
  • How are virtual processors actually scheduled by the hypervisor?
  • How does the hypervisor handle machine check events?

There is a lot of good information in there – so I would recommend taking the time to read it through.

Cheers,
Ben