The upgrade also reduces the potential for data corruption in the event of a storage failure. Upgraded virtual machines use a new configuration file format, which is designed to increase the efficiency of reading and writing virtual machine configuration data. You also update the configuration version to the latest version supported by that Hyper-V host. When you update the configuration version, you change the file structure that is used to store the virtual machines configuration and the checkpoint files. The virtual machine configuration version represents the compatibility of the virtual machine’s configuration, saved state, and snapshot files with the version of Hyper-V. You can’t downgrade the virtual machine configuration version after you’ve upgraded it. But, this also means that you can’t use some of the new virtual machine features until you manually update the configuration version. This means that you can move the virtual machine back to a Hyper-V host that runs a previous version of Windows or Windows Server. When you move or import a virtual machine to a computer that runs Hyper-V on Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, or Windows 10, the virtual machine's configuration isn’t automatically updated.
Why should I upgrade the virtual machine configuration version?
