Hyper-V Manage 0.9.6

This is a pre-release. Every VM is made with the user name vmuser and password
vmadmin unless you choose others, and joins your network with Remote Desktop on, so choose
your own password on a network you share.

What's new in 0.9.6

• A list of each VM's checkpoints (#13).
  Under the list of VMs, and next to it in Tab order, is the selected VM's list of checkpoints,
  newest first, each read with when it was taken and whether it's the one the VM is now based on.
  • Enter applies the checkpoint, in the same window as Apply Checkpoint, with that checkpoint
    already chosen.
  • F2 renames it.
  • Delete deletes it, after asking. Choose several with Shift or Ctrl and the arrow keys and
    one question deletes them all, so clearing out old checkpoints is quick. You can no longer take
    the VM back to a deleted checkpoint, but the VM itself and its other checkpoints don't change.
    Focus moves to the next checkpoint, so you can keep going.
  • Shift+Delete deletes a checkpoint and every one taken after it; the question names them.
  • The same actions are on the new Checkpoints menu (Alt+C) and the list's context menu
    (Shift+F10). F5 reads the list again, and it follows checkpoints made or deleted elsewhere.
• Help, Download Ubuntu (#11).
  The Help menu now has Ubuntu 26.04 LTS beside the Windows downloads: it opens ubuntu.com's
  download folder for this PC's processor, the one New Ubuntu Virtual Machine downloads from.
  The build still downloads Ubuntu itself, but uses the newest desktop ISO from your Downloads
  folder instead when it's there under the name it downloaded with.
• Escape answers No. The questions that ask before deleting a VM or checkpoints, stopping a
  build, or installing an update now close with Escape, Alt+F4 or the close button, and that
  answers No. Before, Escape did nothing and you had to Tab to No. No has focus to begin with,
  except for the update question, which starts on Yes as before. Deleting and stopping still play
  the warning sound.
• Plainer Delete questions. Deleting a VM says what goes, the VM, its checkpoints and its
  disk files, and says it's turned off first only when it's running. Deleting checkpoints says
  you can no longer take the VM back to them, and that the VM and its other checkpoints don't
  change. Both end with "This can't be undone."

Download

• HyperVManage-Setup-x64.exe for Intel and AMD PCs, or HyperVManage-Setup-arm64.exe
  for Arm PCs, installs Hyper-V Manage for you, with a Start menu entry, and keeps it up to
  date: an update downloads while you use it and is installed when you close it, or straight
  away from Help, Check for Updates.
• HyperVManage-x64.exe or HyperVManage-arm64.exe is the same app as one program to
  run from anywhere, with nothing to install. It tells you when there's a new version, but
  doesn't update itself.
• The zip holds New-HyperVRdpVM.ps1, the script the app runs to build a VM, for the
  command line. Extract it and open Create VM.cmd.

It needs Windows 10 or 11 Pro, Enterprise or Education with Hyper-V turned on, and asks for
administrator rights when it starts. Everything is signed by "kelly ford"; Windows
SmartScreen may still ask about a new download until the publisher builds up reputation.

Found a problem? Help, Report a Bug. Read the README.

Hyper-V Manage 0.9.5

This is a pre-release. Every VM is made with the user name vmuser and password
vmadmin unless you choose others, and joins your network with Remote Desktop on, so choose
your own password on a network you share.

What's new in 0.9.5

• New Ubuntu Virtual Machine works from the installed app. In 0.9.4 it stopped at once with
  "The type name 'HashSet' could not be found". PowerShell was starting in the app's own folder,
  where .NET's copies of Windows' assemblies sent the build's small C# helpers to the wrong ones.
  Every PowerShell the app runs now starts in Windows' System32 folder instead, which also means
  nothing in the app's folder, which your account can write to, can be picked up by the
  PowerShell it runs as administrator.

New in 0.9.4: Ubuntu virtual machines

• New Ubuntu Virtual Machine (File menu, Ctrl+Shift+N). It builds an Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
  desktop VM with no installer questions and the Orca screen reader on, then opens Remote
  Desktop straight to the desktop, with Orca already talking and its speech playing on your PC.
  There's no second sign-in. Give it a name, a user name and password, and its processors,
  memory and disk, as for Windows; Orca screen reader on from the start is checked to begin
  with.
  • Ubuntu is downloaded from ubuntu.com the first time, about 4 GB on an Arm PC and 6.5 GB on
    others. It's checked against Ubuntu's own checksums and kept for the next one. A download
    that stops partway carries on next time.
  • Hyper-V gives a VM no sound card, so the sound comes over Remote Desktop, as it does for
    Windows. Hyper-V's "enhanced session" for Linux is Remote Desktop too, but through a program
    Ubuntu's desktop no longer works with, so the VM uses GNOME's own Remote Desktop instead.
  • The Hyper-V console shows only Ubuntu's sign-in screen, and has no sound. Screenshot shows
    that screen without asking for a sign-in, and Run Windows OCR reads it, which helps if the
    install stalls.
  • The install takes 20 to 40 minutes, and the build says how far it has got every three
    minutes.
  • So far it has been built end to end on an Arm64 PC; x64 PCs take the same steps but haven't
    been tried yet.
• New Virtual Machine is now New Windows Virtual Machine, still on Ctrl+N.
• New-HyperVRdpVM.ps1 -Ubuntu does the same from the command line. See the script's
  README.

Download

• HyperVManage-Setup-x64.exe for Intel and AMD PCs, or HyperVManage-Setup-arm64.exe
  for Arm PCs, installs Hyper-V Manage for you, with a Start menu entry, and keeps it up to
  date: an update downloads while you use it and is installed when you close it, or straight
  away from Help, Check for Updates.
• HyperVManage-x64.exe or HyperVManage-arm64.exe is the same app as one program to
  run from anywhere, with nothing to install. It tells you when there's a new version, but
  doesn't update itself.
• The zip holds New-HyperVRdpVM.ps1, the script the app runs to build a VM, for the
  command line. Extract it and open Create VM.cmd.

It needs Windows 10 or 11 Pro, Enterprise or Education with Hyper-V turned on, and asks for
administrator rights when it starts. Everything is signed by "kelly ford"; Windows
SmartScreen may still ask about a new download until the publisher builds up reputation.

Found a problem? Help, Report a Bug. Read the README.

Hyper-V Manage 0.9.4

This is a pre-release. Every VM is made with the user name vmuser and password
vmadmin unless you choose others, and joins your network with Remote Desktop on, so choose
your own password on a network you share.

What's new in 0.9.4

• New Ubuntu Virtual Machine (File menu, Ctrl+Shift+N). It builds an Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
  desktop VM with no installer questions and the Orca screen reader on, then opens Remote
  Desktop straight to the desktop, with Orca already talking and its speech playing on your PC.
  There's no second sign-in. Give it a name, a user name and password, and its processors,
  memory and disk, as for Windows; Orca screen reader on from the start is checked to begin
  with.
  • Ubuntu is downloaded from ubuntu.com the first time, about 4 GB on an Arm PC and 6.5 GB on
    others. It's checked against Ubuntu's own checksums and kept for the next one. A download
    that stops partway carries on next time.
  • Hyper-V gives a VM no sound card, so the sound comes over Remote Desktop, as it does for
    Windows. Hyper-V's "enhanced session" for Linux is Remote Desktop too, but through a program
    Ubuntu's desktop no longer works with, so the VM uses GNOME's own Remote Desktop instead.
  • The Hyper-V console shows only Ubuntu's sign-in screen, and has no sound. Screenshot shows
    that screen without asking for a sign-in, and Run Windows OCR reads it, which helps if the
    install stalls.
  • The install takes 20 to 40 minutes, and the build says how far it has got every three
    minutes.
  • So far it has been built end to end on an Arm64 PC; x64 PCs take the same steps but haven't
    been tried yet.
• New Virtual Machine is now New Windows Virtual Machine, still on Ctrl+N.
• New-HyperVRdpVM.ps1 -Ubuntu does the same from the command line. See the script's
  README.

Download

• HyperVManage-Setup-x64.exe for Intel and AMD PCs, or HyperVManage-Setup-arm64.exe
  for Arm PCs, installs Hyper-V Manage for you, with a Start menu entry, and keeps it up to
  date: an update downloads while you use it and is installed when you close it, or straight
  away from Help, Check for Updates.
• HyperVManage-x64.exe or HyperVManage-arm64.exe is the same app as one program to
  run from anywhere, with nothing to install. It tells you when there's a new version, but
  doesn't update itself.
• The zip holds New-HyperVRdpVM.ps1, the script the app runs to build a VM, for the
  command line. Extract it and open Create VM.cmd.

It needs Windows 10 or 11 Pro, Enterprise or Education with Hyper-V turned on, and asks for
administrator rights when it starts. Everything is signed by "kelly ford"; Windows
SmartScreen may still ask about a new download until the publisher builds up reputation.

Found a problem? Help, Report a Bug. Read the README.

Hyper-V Manage 0.9.3

This is a pre-release. Every VM is made with the user name vmuser and password
vmadmin unless you choose others, and joins your network with Remote Desktop on, so choose
your own password on a network you share.

What's new in 0.9.3

• An installer, and automatic updates. HyperVManage-Setup-x64.exe and
  HyperVManage-Setup-arm64.exe install Hyper-V Manage for your account, with a Start menu
  entry. From then on it checks for a new version each time it starts, downloads it while you
  work, and installs it when you close the app. Help, Check for Updates checks straight away and
  can install at once. The single exe is still here for running without installing; it tells you
  when there's a new version.
• Help, Report a Bug. Say what happened and press Send. It goes in with the app's version,
  Windows' version, the processor and which screen reader is running, and nothing about your
  VMs. No GitHub account is needed. Send with GitHub opens GitHub's new issue form in your browser
  instead, with the report filled in.
• ISOs you've used before. New Virtual Machine's Windows ISO is now a list: the ISOs you've
  built VMs from, the last one already chosen, then the newest in Downloads, then Browse for an
  ISO, which opens the file dialog. No more finding the same ISO every time.
• Its own home. Hyper-V Manage now lives at
  TheIdeaPlace/HyperVManage, with its history.
  Releases before this one stay at TheWorkBench.
• About shows the release's own version.

The single exe from 0.9.2 and earlier doesn't update itself: download the installer once, and it
keeps itself up to date from then on.

Download

• HyperVManage-Setup-x64.exe for Intel and AMD PCs, or HyperVManage-Setup-arm64.exe
  for Arm PCs, installs Hyper-V Manage for you, with a Start menu entry, and keeps it up to
  date: an update downloads while you use it and is installed when you close it, or straight
  away from Help, Check for Updates.
• HyperVManage-x64.exe or HyperVManage-arm64.exe is the same app as one program to
  run from anywhere, with nothing to install. It tells you when there's a new version, but
  doesn't update itself.
• The zip holds New-HyperVRdpVM.ps1, the script the app runs to build a VM, for the
  command line. Extract it and open Create VM.cmd.

It needs Windows 10 or 11 Pro, Enterprise or Education with Hyper-V turned on, and asks for
administrator rights when it starts. Everything is signed by "kelly ford"; Windows
SmartScreen may still ask about a new download until the publisher builds up reputation.

Found a problem? Help, Report a Bug. Read the README.