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Hypervisor Type 1 and Type 2
Have you ever wondered what the difference between a type 1 and type 2 hypervisor is. This drawing shows the principle
Type 1 Hypervisors sit between the hardware and your virtual machines AND your Host OS.
In effect, your Host OS is turned into a virtual machine as well. Each Guest OS has direct access to the native hardware via interface built into the Hypervisor.
Type 2 Hypervisors sit between your virtual machines AND your Host OS.
The Guest OSs do not have direct access to Host hardware, and use emulated drivers.
There are pluses and minuses with each type:
In the domestic consumer market, the three main players are type 1 - Hyper-V (not for Home users), and type 2 (work with Home) - virtualbox (free version), VMware workstation (free version)
Hyper-V is really more geared to Windows virtual machines but will run alternative OSs but sound is typically not available. Biggest minus is it is not available to Home users.
VirtualBox and VMWare have more flexibility, but require more maintenance, particularly when a build upgrade = occasionally a build upgrade "breaks" the type 2 hypervisor.
Personally, I use Hyper-V as I use it for Insider builds, and my personal experience is it performs better than the type 2 alternatives, and less maintenance overhead. However, not so good for Linux etc.
Nobody can say one is better than the other - it really depends on what you are doing.
Note: Windows does not allow the two hypervisor types to coexist Fortunately, it is quite easy to create two boot entries - one which will start the type 1 Hyper-V hypervisor, and one which will suppress it starting so type 2 can be used instead.
Edit - this is not true anymore but you get a performance hit running type 2 hypervisors if type 1 is installed.
I have no idea if you can run two type 1 hypervisors simultaneously but I suspect not?
Last edited by cereberus; 24 Jan 2023 at 18:04.