Q. Can I set processor affinity with Hyper-V?

A. In virtualization, processor affinity (also known as hard affinity) allows you to link a virtual processor with a physical core in the host. This is required in many virtualization solutions because a virtual machine (VM) needs to make sure it always gets a full CPU's worth of processing, and the virtual layers don't have other ways of ensuring a VM always gets a full core.

Hyper-V can reserve a percentage of a CPU's processing power for a VM, but doesn't require you to reserve a specific core for a VM. You can set that reserve to 100 percent, meaning a VM is guaranteed to have a full CPU core's processing power. Setting a 100 percent reservation for a VM has more or less the same effect as setting a processor affinity, but Hyper-V doesn't need processor affinity nor support it.

Related Reading:

Check out hundreds more useful Q&As like this in John Savill's FAQ for Windows. Also, watch instructional videos made by John at ITTV.net.