Supported operating systems in Virtual Server 2005 R2

This article describes the guest operating systems that are supported by Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. Additionally, this article describes the host computer operating systems on which you can install Virtual Server 2005 R2.

Supported virtual machine guest operating systems

The following virtual machine operating systems are supported in Virtual Server 2005 R2:

Microsoft Windows operating systems

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Datacenter Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 with Service Pack 6a (SP6a)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Enterprise Linux distributions

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 update 6
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 update 6
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0

Standard Linux distributions

• Red Hat Linux 7.3
• Red Hat Linux 9.0
• SUSE Linux 9.2
• SUSE Linux 9.3
• SUSE Linux 10.0

Supported host operating systems

The following operating systems are supported for the installation of Virtual Server 2005 R2:

• Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
• Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Premium Edition
  Note Without ISA Server 2000 or ISA Server 2004
  
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional, x64 Edition
• Windows Vista

Important Microsoft provides support for running Virtual Server 2005 R2 on a Windows Vista-based computer or on a Windows XP-based computer in a non-production development or test environment.

The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.

For more information about running Virtual Server on Windows Vista, visit the following Microsoft Web site: