Identify which of the following is a Type 1 hypervisor.

• A. Microsoft Hyper-V
• B. VMware Workstation
• C. Oracle VirtualBox
• D. Parallels Desktop

Answer: (A)

Understanding the difference between bare-metal (Type 1) and hosted (Type 2) hypervisors is what this item tests. A Type 1 hypervisor runs directly on the physical hardware and provides the virtualization layer without a host operating system. It boots first and manages virtual machines with direct access to CPU virtualization features and hardware resources, offering strong performance and isolation. Microsoft Hyper-V fits this pattern, designed to operate as a bare-metal hypervisor that can be installed as part of Windows Server or as a standalone Hyper-V Server, running directly on hardware to host VMs. The other popular desktop virtualization products run atop a host operating system, meaning they rely on that OS to manage resources and drivers, which adds overhead but is convenient for desktop use.