Allowing non-Administrators to control Hyper-V

By default Hyper-V is configured such that only members of the administrators group can create and control virtual machines.  I am going to show you how to allow a non-administrative user to create and control virtual machines.

Hyper-V uses the new authorization management framework in Windows to allow you to configure what users can and cannot do with virtual machines.

Hyper-V can be configured to store it’s authorization configuration in Active Directory or in a local XML file.  After initial installation it will always be configured to use a local XML file located at \programdata\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\InitialStore.xml on the system partition.  To edit this file you will need to:

Open the Run dialog (launch it from the Start menu or press Windows Key + R).
Start mmc.exe
Open the File menu and select Add/Remove Snap-in…
From the Available snap-ins list select Authorization Manager.
Click Add > and then click OK.
Click on the new Authorization Manager node in the left panel.
Open the Action menu and select Open Authorization Store…
Choose XML file for the Select the authorization store type: option and then use the Browse… to open \programdata\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\InitialStore.xml on the system partition (programdata is a hidden directory so you will need to type it in first).
Click OK.
Expand InitialStore.xml then Microsoft Hyper-V services then Role Assignments and finally select Administrator.
Open the Action menu and select Assign Users and Groups then From Windows and Active Directory…
Enter the name of the user that you want to be able to control Hyper-V and click OK.
Close the MMC window (you can save or discard your changes to Console 1 – this does not affect the authorization manager changes that you just made).

The user that you added will be able to completely control Hyper-V even if they are not an administrator on the physical computer.

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