Error code when you create or start a virtual machine on a Windows Server 2008-based computer that has Hyper-V or on a Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008-based computer: "0x800704C8", "0x80070037" or "0x800703E3"

When you try to create or start a virtual machine on a Windows Server 2008-based computer that has the Hyper-V role installed or on a Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 or on a Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 computer, you experience one of the following problems:

• You receive one of the following error messages:
  Error message 1
  The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open. (0x800704C8)
  Error message 2
  VMName’ Microsoft Synthetic Ethernet Port (Instance ID{7E0DA81A-A7B4-4DFD-869F-37002C36D816}): Failed to Power On with Error 'The specified network resource or device is no longer available.' (0x80070037).
  Error message 3
  The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request. (0x800703E3)
• Virtual machines disappear from the Hyper-V Management Console.

These problems can be caused by antivirus software that is installed in the parent partition if the real-time scanning component is configured to monitor the Hyper-V virtual machine files.

To resolve this issue, configure the real-time scanning component within your antivirus software to exclude the following directories and files:

• Default virtual machine configuration directory (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V)
• Custom virtual machine configuration directories
• Default virtual hard disk drive directory (C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks)
• Custom virtual hard disk drive directories
• Snapshot directories
• Vmms.exe
• Vmwp.exe

Additionally, when you use Live Migration together with Cluster Shared Volumes on Windows Server 2008 R2, exclude the CSV path "C:\Clusterstorage" and all its subdirectories.

Notes

• If virtual machines are missing from the Hyper-V Management console, you must configure the antivirus exclusions, and then restart the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service.
• If you receive error code 0x800704C8, it is likely that the virtual machine configuration file was corrupted. In this case, and if restarting the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service does not resolve the issue, the virtual machine has to be re-created or restored from a backup.

 

To protect your virtual machines, we recommend that you install the antivirus software within the virtual machine.

For more information about best practices for Hyper-V security, please see the following article on the Microsoft TechNet Web site: