Mastering Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V

Figure 2.6 Generation 1 compared to generation 2 hardware

At the time of this writing, the following operating systems can be installed in a
generation 2 virtual machine:

Windows Server  2012

Windows Server  2012    R2

Windows Server  2016

Windows 8   64-bit

Windows 8.1 64-bit

Windows 10  64-bit

Certain Linux   distributions   that    are 64-bit  with    native  UEFI    support and the

Hyper-V SCSI    controller, such    as  Ubuntu  14.04

The biggest restriction is the need for the operating system to natively fully support
UEFI, which is not available prior to Windows 8/Windows Server 2012, and only the
64-bit versions of Windows support UEFI. For a good overview of UEFI support with
Windows, see: