Run Hyper-V Virtual Machines on an External Flash Drive
You can run a complete Hyper-V virtual machine from an external USB drive and share it between multiple computers! The process is the same for other types of external storage, including network shares (provided permissions are correctly set).
Applies to:
Windows 10 Professional, Enterprise, Education, Windows 11 Professional, Enterprise, Education, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2025
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:05 Install Hyper-V Feature
2:01 Create Hyper-V VM on Source Computer
3:12 Check External Flash Drive Contents
3:50 Run VM on Another Computer Running Hyper-V
5:32 About Hyper-V Configuration Version
6:20 Thank you for watching
Glossary:
USB = Universal Serial Bus
VHD = Virtual Hard Disk
VHDX = Virtual Hard Disk eXtended
VM = Virtual Machine
VMCX = Virtual machine configuration
VMGS = Virtual machine guest state
VMRS = Virtual machine runtime state
PowerShell Commands:
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
Get-VM [VMName] | Select-Object vmname,vmid,id,*location,version,path,computername
Links:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azu...
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/win...
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/win...