Hyper-V: Enable all integration services in virtual machines

Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012

This topic is intended to address a specific issue identified by a Best Practices Analyzer scan. You should apply the information in this topic only to computers that have had the Hyper-V Best Practices Analyzer run against them and are experiencing the issue addressed by this topic. For more information about best practices and scans, see Best Practices Analyzer.

Issue

One or more integration services are disabled or not working in a virtual machine.

Impact

The service or integration feature may not operate correctly for the following virtual machines: <list of virtual machine names>

Resolution

Use the Services snap-in or sc config command-line tool to verify that the service is configured to start automatically and is not stopped.

If you are running Windows as a guest operating system, you can use the Services snap-in or the sc config command-line tool to configure the service to start automatically. The following procedures provide instructions for using either method in Windows Server 2008 R2. If the guest operating system is running an earlier version of Windows, some steps, menu names, or command names may be different than the instructions.

By default, membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to connect to a virtual machine. However, an administrator can use Authorization Manager to modify the authorization policy so that a user or group of users can complete this procedure. For more information, see Using Authorization Manager for Hyper-V Security (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=142886). Permissions required to perform the rest of the procedure may vary depending on how the security of the guest operating system is configured.

To configure how a service is started using the Windows interface

1. Use Remote Desktop Services or Virtual Machine Connection to access the virtual machine and log on to the guest operating system.

2. Open Services. (Click Start, click in the Start Search box, type services.msc, and then press ENTER.)

3. In the details pane, right-click the service that you want to configure, and then click Properties.

4. On the General tab, in Startup type, click Automatic.

To configure how a service is started using the command line

1. Use Remote Desktop Services or Virtual Machine Connection to access the virtual machine and log on to the guest operating system.

2. Open Command Prompt.

3. Type:

   sc config service name start=auto
   

Additional references

For more information, see the Services snap-in Help (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=150519).