Can setting up a VM cause damage to main system

strollin said:

You have it right. If you allocate 2GB to the VM, then you'll have that much less RAM for your main system. It's best on a system with only 4GB of RAM to stick with 32-bit for guest OSes.

Hope and am not going to get major issues trying to get 10 working

Just spent 12 hours downloading the 64-bit version and I only have 4GB RAM, currently on 8 i am at 41% RAM used so hopefully have enough to spare

Thanks for tip, will remember that for the future

You'll only be able to allocate 2GB (at most) to the VM. 64-bit Win 10 should install in 2GB but probably won't run optimally.

strollin said:

You'll only be able to allocate 2GB (at most) to the VM. 64-bit Win 10 should install in 2GB but probably won't run optimally.

If host has 4 GB, Hyper-V allows you to assign 2.8 GB of that to vm, although it leaves so little RAM to host that you can only run the vm if you have at least 3.2 GB free RAM when vm is launched.

Here a screenshot from a 4 GB system. I try to assign all RAM (4 GB) to vm (#1), system warns me and tells what's the maximum (#2):

I guess I should rephrase my statement to say that the most you would ever WANT to allocate to a VM running on a 4GB host would be 2G because any more than that and the host would be starved for RAM.

Thanks for replies
I set the RAM up to use 2GB in the VM and 2 cores for the processor (followed the tutorial for setting win 8 up on the eightforums)

My PC goes to about 85% RAM used when running the VM but everything is working smoothly (just need to have minimum running in main 8 OS though)

Strollin, sorry my post was in no way meant to be anything else than just stating a fact. Last few hours I have been composing a Hyper-V tutorial, it will be ready later today, but here's an extract of that already:

The RAM assigned to a vm is taken from your host RAM; if you assign 1 GB to a vm, when it's run your host is missing this 1 GB. I recommend you try first following values if your host has 4 GB RAM or less:

• Host 2GB RAM > assign max 512 MB
• Host 2 to 4 GB RAM > assign max 1 GB

Selecting the Dynamic memory lets Hyper-V to be flexible, use only the amount of RAM needed at any given moment. In Windows virtual machines, Hyper-V uses the amount you gave it at startup of the vm but then when it's not needed, it releases some of it back to host, getting again more when it needs it.