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Firstly, a virtual machine can only be exported if it is shut down or saved. A running or paused virtual machine cannot be migrated. Some readers may be familiar with the live migration capabilities of virtual solutions such as Xen and VMware VMotion which allow a running virtual machine to be moved from one server to another without any perceptible interruption of service. Whilst Microsoft are working on such a feature for Hyper-V, the current version supports only the static migration of a powered off virtual machine.
Secondly, the set of files comprising an exported virtual machine may only be imported by once into a Hyper-V server. The reason for this is that the imported virtual machine will be stored and run from the location from which it was imported. The key advantage of this is that, whilst the export process can take a considerable amount of time to complete, the import is generally completed in a matter of seconds. If, however, an exported virtual machine is to be imported into multiple Hyper-V servers, separate copies of the export folder will need to be used for each import.
Thirdly, the Hyper-V Import feature is only able to import Hyper-V based virtual machines. The configuration format used by Virtual Server 2005 and Virtual PC is incompatible with that used by Hyper-Vin this context.
Now that we have covered what Hyper-V cannot do, it is time to look at what it can do. Hyper-V can migrate any Hyper-V virtual machine from any Hyper-V server to any other Hyper-V server. The migrated virtual machine will include all the configuration information pertaining to the virtual machine, together with any virtual hard drives assigned to it. In addition, the export feature allows only the virtual machine's configuration to be exported, thereby excluding any virtual disk drives from the export package. This feature can be useful for situations where only the virtual machine's configuration needs to be duplicated on a different Hyper-V server.
Once the export dialog is displayed, the next step is to decide where to save the export files. The target location may be entered directly into the text field, or the ''Browse'' button used to navigate graphically to the target destination. The export location of the virtual machine can be any file system which is visible to the local Hyper-V sever server host system, including local disk drives, removable storage or remotely mounted volumes on the target Hyper-V Server. The only requirement is that the designated volume have has sufficient free space to store the virtual machine configuration, virtual hard drives and snapshots. If only the configuration files for the virtual machine are to be exported, the ''Export only virtual machine configuration'' option should also be selected. Within the designated location, a sub-folder with the name of the virtual machine will be created to contain the exported data.
Once a suitable export location has been identified and specified, the export process may be invoked clicking on the ''Export'' button. During the export process the ''Operations''' entry for the selected virtual machine will change to ''Exporting'' followed by the current progress percentage. The duration of the export process will vary depending on factors such the performance and load of the host system, the size of any virtual disk drives and the number of snapshots associated with the virtual machine.
Once the Hyper-V Manager indicates that the export process has completed, navigate using Windows Explorer to the export location specified and review the files that have been created.
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* '''Virtual Machines''' - The file contained within this folders folder is named using a combination of the virtual machine's globally unique identifier (GUID) and the .exp file extension. This file contains the detailed virtual machine configuration and is in binary format. When imported into the target Hyper-V server this binary information is converted to XML format.
* '''Virtual Hard Drives''' - This folder contains copies of any virtual hard drive file images associated with the exported virtual machine.
Specify, or navigate to the folder containing the exported virtual machine files and then optionally elect to re-use the original virtual machine ID for the imported virtual machine. If the original virtual machine is to continue operating with in within the same Hyper-V infrastructure as the exported virtual machine this option is not recommended. Also note that once the virtual machine has been exported, the folder cannot be used to import a second time (since the new virtual machine will be using the folder for the imported virtual machine).
As the virtual machine is imported, a progress dialog will be displayed. Once the import is completed the dialog will close and the virtual machine is ready to run.
