--- title: 'My Hyper-V Lab: 12 Enterprise VMs on a Laptop' url: 'http://itlad.uk/blog/my-hyper-v-lab' markdown: 'http://itlad.uk/blog/my-hyper-v-lab.md' date: '2026-06-08' description: 'My Hyper-V lab setup on a laptop — 12 enterprise VMs covering Dynamics CRM, SQL Server, IIS clusters, VPN, AD domain and logging infrastructure.' taxonomy: category: - homelab tag: - hyper-v - vms - lab - microsoft - windows-server - homelab --- [ Home ](http://itlad.uk/) [ Blog ](http://itlad.uk/blog) My Hyper-V Lab: 12 Enterprise VMs on a Laptop # [My Hyper-V Lab: 12 Enterprise VMs on a Laptop](http://itlad.uk/blog/my-hyper-v-lab) By [IT Lad](http://itlad.uk/about) 8 Jun 2026 [hyper-v](http://itlad.uk/blog/tag:hyper-v#body-wrapper) [vms](http://itlad.uk/blog/tag:vms#body-wrapper) [lab](http://itlad.uk/blog/tag:lab#body-wrapper) [microsoft](http://itlad.uk/blog/tag:microsoft#body-wrapper) [windows-server](http://itlad.uk/blog/tag:windows-server#body-wrapper) [homelab](http://itlad.uk/blog/tag:homelab#body-wrapper) Hyper-V runs directly on Windows 11 Pro. No separate hypervisor host, no dedicated server. The 64GB RAM in my laptop means I can run three or four of these VMs simultaneously without hitting a wall. These are enterprise workloads — not desktop OS testing, but the server infrastructure I use to learn, break and fix things in a controlled environment. ## The VMs ### CRM2011 and CRM2016 Two Dynamics CRM environments covering the on-premise versions that many businesses still run. CRM2011 uses a Gen 1 VM because that era of server software predates the UEFI boot requirements Gen 2 enforces. CRM2016 runs Gen 2 with full UEFI and Secure Boot. Useful when a client calls about a Dynamics issue on an old install and I need to reproduce it without touching production. ### IIS, IIS NODE1, IIS NODE2 Three IIS servers that I use as a small web farm. NODE1 and NODE2 sit behind a load balancer. Testing session persistence, ARR routing rules, shared application pool identity across nodes — this cluster handles all of it without me touching a production server. ### SQL2019 SQL Server 2019 on a Gen 2 VM. Development target for database work, stored procedures and testing backup and restore procedures. Easier to nuke and restore from snapshot than to deal with a corrupted dev database on a shared server. ### LogServer Centralised logging. Ships logs from other VMs in the lab for aggregation and alerting. Keeps the noise off the domain controller and lets me see cross-VM events in one place. ### TrainingServer A clean server environment I use for demos and screencasts. Stays at a consistent baseline so a demo starting point is always one snapshot restore away. ### VPN2016 Windows Server 2016 running RRAS for VPN testing. Useful for verifying client connectivity, split tunnelling configs and certificate-based authentication before pushing changes to a real VPN server. ### Acer and Vaio10 Two Gen 1 VMs I built to replicate hardware configurations from specific physical machines. Legacy software installs and driver validation without touching the actual hardware. ## Running Multiple VMs Simultaneously With 64GB RAM, running three of these at once is comfortable. My typical combination: AD domain controller + SQL2019 + one application server. That trio stays under 20GB RAM when I keep SQL Server's max memory setting at 4GB. Hyper-V checkpoints make this lab safe to experiment in. Break something, roll back, try again. [Windows Server 2022 for home lab licensing](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=windows%2Bserver%2B2022%2Bstandard%2Boem&tag=itlad-21) — Standard includes two VM licenses which covers most lab scenarios. ### enterprisegdc.com A full Active Directory domain. Domain controller, DNS, DHCP — the whole stack. I spin this up when I need a realistic AD environment for testing GPO changes, delegation models or anything that requires an actual domain rather than a workgroup. --- *As an Amazon Associate, IT Lad earns from qualifying purchases made through links on this page. [Read the full affiliate disclosure](http://itlad.uk/affiliate-disclosure).* [ Previous Post](http://itlad.uk/blog/my-laptop-specs-daily-driver) [Next Post ](http://itlad.uk/blog/my-virtualbox-vm-collection) #### Syndicate [ Atom 1.0](http://itlad.uk/blog.atom) [ RSS](http://itlad.uk/blog.rss) --- ## Navigation - Parent: [Blog](http://itlad.uk/blog.md) - Previous: [My VirtualBox Collection: 37 VMs Covering Security, Networking and Every Linux Distro I Could Find](http://itlad.uk/blog/my-virtualbox-vm-collection.md) - Next: [My Daily Driver: i7-8750H Laptop Running 64GB, Dual 2TB NVMe and a GTX 1060](http://itlad.uk/blog/my-laptop-specs-daily-driver.md)