Virtualization has been around for many years now and is commonly used in larger corporations as a way to save money and datacenter space by running multiple virtual computers on a single physical computer or server. This way they only need to worry about the cost of the one physical computer (sometimes more) and the licensing for the virtual computers (virtual machines).

Now that virtualization is so common, it made sense to apply it to desktop computers so others can create and run virtual machines (VMs) on their desktop PC so they can do things such as test operating systems or new software or even install an operating system they are not familiar with for training purposes.

Microsoft Hyper-V was designed to run on Windows servers and provide enterprise level virtualization capabilities. But if you want to use Hyper-V to run VMs on your Windows desktop computer, you can do so as well assuming you have the correct version of Windows such as the Professional edition. 

The goal of this book is to get you up and running with Hyper-V on your Windows desktop PC and to get some virtual machines configured with the proper internet and network settings. I will also be covering topics such as virtual disks, virtual switches and the Hyper-V settings.