Download and Set Up Windows 10 Virtual Machine with Hyper-V to Test Microsoft Edge

Microsoft released Windows 10 virtual machines on Microsoft Edge Dev website for the help to web developers who don’t use Windows 10 testing out Microsoft Edge browser. It supports on a variety of operating systems and hosting platforms but this post will just focus on Hyper-V on Windows computers.

Enable Hyper-V on Windows

If you haven’t done so, you can enable Hyper-V on your Windows 8.1 computers by going to Control Panel → Programs → Turn Windows features on or off, and click Hyper-V option to make sure all components are checked. Click OK and reboot your computer to finish the setup.

Settings - 2015-05-04 14_21_57

Note that you may also need to enable Virtualization Technology in BIOS to run Hyper-V on a Windows workstation.

Download and extract Windows 10 Virtual Machine image

Go to Download virtual machines page, select Microsoft Edge on Wndows 10 as the type of Virtual machine and Hyper-V as the platform under Windows tab, and click Download .zip button to start downloading the image file.

Edge - download virtual machine to test

The package is over 4 GB so it could take a long while to get it downloaded.

Once the file downloaded, right-click the ZIP file, and extract the content to a location that is easy to access later on. For example, I use 7Zip as the compressing tool so I can just right-click the ZIP file, go to 7Zip, and extract to the folder.

Extract Virtual Machine Zip File

Import the VM to Hyper-V

Launch Hyper-V manager, right-click the server listed there and select Import Virtual Machine…

Hyper-V - Import

The Import Virtual Machine wizard pops up. Click Next to skip the intro page and go to Locate Folder step.

Hyper-V - Import Wizard - 2

Select the folder that contains all the files you extracted from the ZIP file downloaded from last step. And click Next.

Hyper-V - Import Wizard - 3

Highlight IE11-Win10, and click Next. Since this is a Windows 10 VM, it has both IE 11 and Edge browser in it.

Hyper-V - Import Wizard - 4

Leave it as default, and click Next to Connect Network step.

Hyper-V - Import Wizard - 5

You may get the similar warning message as above. If that’s the case, pick a connection from the Dropdown menu. And click Next to the Summery page.

Hyper-V - Import Wizard - 6

Click Finish, and it’s done.

Now, go back in Hyper-V Manager, you will see IE11-Win10 listed as a new virtual machine there. If it’s not started yet, right-click it and select Start.

Hyper-V - Start Virtual Machine

Once it’s running, you can right-click it again and go to Connect… to connect to the VM. It takes a bit time to boot up and once done, you will be prompted in the login screen with IEUser as the default user set up there.

IE11 - Win10 on C-20130302 - Virtual Machine Connection - 2015-08-18 15_30_45

Type in the default password, which is “Passw0rd!”, press Enter. Hooray…time to rock.

IE11 - Win10 on C-20130302 - Virtual Machine Connection - 2015-08-18 15_36_24

One thought on “Download and Set Up Windows 10 Virtual Machine with Hyper-V to Test Microsoft Edge

  1. Thanks for this article (I can’t believe I am the only one saying this)
    I got an error on the network option (nothing in drop down)
    and
    I got an error on starting.
    I will fix and report back here what was needed.
    Craig.

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