Windows, security, etc.

Hyper-V is Microsoft virtualization technology that uses Microkernelized hypervisor. Let’s explain those words:

1. Micro  – it’s small. 
2. Kernelized- it runs in kernel. Actually it runs below kernel. When Windows boot up on a machine with Hyper-V installed, winload.exe loads the driver hvboot.sys.It’s purpose is to check if machine support hardware virtualization. If so, hypervisor image file is loaded (hvix.exe on intel and hvax.exe on amd hardware)
3. Hypervisior - software, hardware or combination of both that allows multiple operating systems to run on a single host computer

So, how big is microkernel of Hyper-V hypervisor?

Hypervisior v2 build 6.1.7600.16385 is:

• 651776 bytes (hvax64.exe – AMD), and
• 706650 bytes (hvix64.exe – Intel)

Microsoft Hypervisor 2.0