Installing and configuring an anti-virus on host and virtual machines

This is one of the most common discussions with Hyper-V. Lots of IT professionals struggle with the option of whether or not to install Anti-Virus (AV) on the host and the virtual machines.

Security is the prime concern in all scenarios and as a Hyper-V administrator, you need to make sure that there are no compromises on your servers, either physical or virtual. This recipe will show you first how to configure the Hyper-V exceptions, when using an AV system in the parent partition, and then discuss in the How it works section when and where the AV is necessary.

Getting ready

Due to the vast number of anti-virus products, this recipe will only focus on configurations that have to be done and not actually how to do them. Make sure that you are familiar with your AV settings so that you are able to apply the same configuration demonstrated in the AV itself.

Before you begin, make sure that your AV software supports Windows...