Hosting a custom Azure Compute Gallery Image locally in Hyper-V isn't working

Question

I created a custom, generalized (using Sysprep), Windows 11 image from an Azure hosted VM and stored it in a custom Azure Compute image gallery.

c:\Windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /quiet /generalize /oobe /quit

It works when I use the custom gallery image to create Azure hosted VMs with 4 cores and 16GB RAM (Standard_D4s_v5).

It DOES NOT work when I try to use it in Hyper-V on my local system with the same cores and RAM.

I download the custom image from the gallery using the method described here.

$version = Get-AzGalleryImageVersion -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName `
    -GalleryName $GalleryName -GalleryDefinitionName $GalleryDefinitionName `
    -Name $GalleryImageVersionName -ErrorAction Stop;
$diskConfig = New-AzDiskConfig -Location $Location -CreateOption FromImage `
    -GalleryImageReference @{ Id = $version.Id };
$diskName = Split-Path -Path $version.StorageProfile.Source.Id -Leaf;
$disk = New-AzDisk -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName -DiskName $diskName `
    -Disk $diskConfig -ErrorAction Stop;
$diskAccess = Grant-AzDiskAccess -ResourceGroupName $disk.ResourceGroupName `
    -DiskName $disk.Name -Access Read `
    -DurationInSecond (New-TimeSpan -Minutes 60).TotalSeconds -ErrorAction Stop;
$vhdPath = "c:\downloads\$diskName.vhd";
Get-AzStorageBlobContent -Uri $diskAccess.AccessSAS -Destination $vhdPath `
    -ErrorAction Stop;

Once that downloads I set up a VM locally with the code below.

$vm = New-VM -Name "TestVM" -VHDPath $vhdPath -MemoryStartupBytes 16GB `
    -ErrorAction Stop;
$vm = $vM | Set-VM -ProcessorCount 4 -AutomaticCheckpointsEnabled $false `
    -CheckpointType Standard -PassThru -ErrorAction Stop;
$vm | Start-VM -ErrorAction Stop;

It says it starts but when I connect to it using the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection window all it shows is a blank screen with a flashing cursor.

Evidence leads me to believe that this is not a graphics card issue (which other stack overflow articles address):

• If I let it run for a few minutes and try to do a shutdown the operation fails with a "The device is not ready for use" error.
• I've tried this on two different hosts and see the same thing.
• Both of the hosts I've tried it on I can successfully run an image I created using Disk2VHD.

Note: I have also used the /mode:vm argument in the SysPrep command but it had no effect on the outcome.

Any ideas on how to get this to work?

Answer 1

The key to resolving this was understanding two things:

• HyperVGeneration : V2
• Windows 11 Hyper-V hosting requirements: VHDX

The following produces a running Win-11 VM:

$vhdxPath = "c:\downloads\$diskName.vhdx";
Convert-VHD -Path $vhdPath -DestinationPath $vhdxPath -VHDType Dynamic -ErrorAction Stop;
$vm = New-VM -Name "TestVM" -VHDPath $vhdxPath -MemoryStartupBytes 16GB -Generation 2 -ErrorAction Stop;
$vm = $vm | Set-VM -AutomaticCheckpointsEnabled $false -CheckpointType Standard -PassThru;
$vm | Set-VMProcessor -Count 4 -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true -PassThru;
$vm | Start-VM;