Copy Files From Host To Virtual Machine In Hyper VMustBeGeek

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In Hyper V, copying files from host machine to the virtual machine is not so easy. In VMware workstation, you would simple install VMware tools and then simply copy and paste the files. But in Hyper V, this is not the case. There are some work around methods that you could use to copy files to virtual machine. So, in this post I will show you some steps to copy files from host to virtual machine in Hyper V virtualization platform.

Copy Files From Host To Virtual Machine In Hyper V

Hyper V comes with Windows 8 for free. But, it is disabled by default. You can enable it from add/remove programs from the control panel. For this demonstration, I have installed Windows 8 Pro as virtual machine in Hyper V. Install the virtual machine (guest) machine and configure the network adapter in Internal virtual switch. The internal virtual switch is used to create network connection between virtual machines and the host only. Then, share the folder which you want to copy to the virtual machine. Configure Everyone as share permission of the folder.

Solution 1

After installing the guest machine in Hyper V, don’t change the IP address of the network adapter yet. It will get the IP address automatically of 169.254.x.x range. The IP is also called APIPA (Automatic Private IP Address). Now open run application and type \\(PC-name), for example, \\bipin-pc as shown below. Bipin-PC is the name of my computer. Do this within the virtual machine as you want to access shared folders of host machine.

Click OK button. Now enter the username and password of your host machine’s logon credentials. You will now access the shared files. After finishing the copying you can configure IP address in the adapter and use the virtual as per you need. This is generally what I do in Hyper V.

Solution 2

After your virtual machine is up and running, you can configure the network adapter to External switch. The External switch is used to connect the virtual machines to external network and Internet. Host and virtual machine will be on same network. If the host have multiple network adapters, then multiple networks can be configured for virtual machines You can configure you virtual machine IP address and host machine’s IP address in the same network. Then you can access the shared folders from virtual machine using the IP address of the host machine.

It’s not easy as doing the same thing in VMware but this will get the job done the hard way.