A virtualisation technology created by Microsoft. It allows the creation of virtual PCs, which can concurrently run multiple operating systems on a single PC. It is available as a free download, and a version of the software is also included in Windows 8 Pro. Unlike popular applications such as VMware and VirtualBox, Hyper-V interfaces directly with the hardware rather than the operating system, giving it several performance advantages. However, it cannot be enabled at the same time as running either of those other virtualisation applications.
