Hyper-V Integration Services Update: Why You Need to Keep Them Up-to-Date at all Times

What’s the story with Hyper-V Integration Services (HIS)? Most modern operating system versions come with it preinstalled, such as Windows Server 2008 R2 and later.

However, the Hyper-V Integration Services version depends on the Hyper-V version installed on the host.

If the two don’t work in sync, you won’t get application consistent backups and a range of other potential issues.

You need to be aware of the fact that Hyper-V doesn’t automatically upgrade its Integration Services and each time you run Windows Update on the host, the Hyper-V components may be upgraded on the host but not inside each VM.

Hence, it may be worth the time to check manually every now and then inside the VM for the latest HIS version.

Note: there’s a bug in Hyper-V Management. When you update HIS from the Action menu, it may be using an outdated version. Instead you’d want to look inside the host’s C:\Windows folder for a file vmguest.iso. Warning: there may be several of these. You need to use the latest and mount it directly to the VMs. Then update HIS and you are good to go

Hope this helps!