Monday, March 15, 2010 9:46 AM
Kurt Roggen
New default Hyper-V R2 Folders
There are two new default folders that Hyper-V R2 creates during installation to store virtual machine– related files:
- %SystemDdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Snapshots Cache
- %SystemDdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines Cache
Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V uses these folders to store (cached) XML files that contain the globally unique identifier (GUID) and the common name associated with a specific virtual machine. This allows Hyper-V R2 to resolve and display the common name of a virtual machine/snapshots, rather than just the GUID, even if the virtual machine storage location is offline (for example: when the LUN is down), or the virtual machine/snapshots configuration file is not readily accessible.
Default snapshots folder containing symbolic link pointers (0 Kb) | 
Symbolic link pointing to exact snapshot |
Exact snapshot (17 Kb) | 
Full snapshot metadata |
Default “Snapshots Cache” folder containing subset of snapshot metadata stored in xml (2-3 Kb) | 
Subset of snapshot metadata for caching purposes |
An identical behavior can be found for the “Virtual Machines Cache” folder.
Filed under: WindowsServer2008R2, HyperV R2