Another aspect that we must take into account is that as it is software that allows emulating hardware in an application, it requires a fairly powerful machine with at least 8 GB of RAM, as long as we want to be able to work in the same way. as fluid as possible both in Windows and in the operating system that we are emulating. If our computer is short of resources, both RAM and processor, it is not recommended to use Hyper-V or other alternatives such as Virtualbox or VMWare, since the operation of these three is the same.
How to activate Hyper-V
By default, this feature is disabled, since the number of users who really need it is very small. Therefore, if we want to use it we will have to activate it manually. Of course, first of all, we must take into account that we need have a Pro version of Windows 10 or Windows 11 installed on the computer (this feature is not available in the Home edition) and, in addition, we must have enabled the CPU virtualization functions in the BIOS/UEFI of our computer. These are VT-x and VT-d in the case of Intel, and AMD-V and AMD-Vi in the case of AMD.
From Windows Features
The hypervisor is included within the optional features of the operating system. Therefore, one of the easiest ways to activate it is from this section. To do this, we write in the Windows search engine «Windows features» and we open
A new window will appear from which we will be able to select the characteristics of the operating system to install or uninstall them. We look for the section that says “Hyper V“, and we marked it. Within this section is the hypervisor as such and its own virtual machine administration tool.
A window will appear from which the necessary components will be downloaded and copied to the system. Of course, to complete the installation and for this function to be enabled it will be necessary to restart the computer. When it starts up again, we can start enjoying this feature.
From PowerShell
If we do not want to carry out the previous steps, it is also possible to do the same with a simple PowerShell command. To do this, what we must do is open the Microsoft console, with Administrator permissions, and execute the following command in it:
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All
The system will be in charge of searching and downloading all the libraries and dependencies necessary to enable this function, and will activate it on our computer. Upon reboot we will be able to see the necessary changes being applied (so it may take a bit longer than normal for the reboot) and when we return to the desktop we will have this feature already available to use.
If we already have Hyper-V installed on the computer, but we have disabled it manually (or another program has done it), there is no need to reinstall the feature, since it is already present on the PC. What we can do is use bcedit to enable it. To do this, we open a PowerShell window again, with Administrator permissions, and we will execute the following command:
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
This command configures the hypervisor launcher to start automatically at system startup. Therefore, after rebooting, Hyper-V will be back on again without issue.
Disable Windows Virtualization
If we no longer need to use the virtualization features of Windows, we can uninstall Hyper-V, or disable the service. In this way we will avoid having the service running on our PC and, if we use other virtualization programs (such as VMware or VirtualBox) we will force them to use their own hypervisors instead of Microsoft’s.
From Windows Features
In the same way that we have enabled Hyper-V from the additional features, if we already have it installed we can uninstall it from there. To do this, we reopen the “Windows Features” panel from the search engine, and in the window that will appear we will locate the Hyper-V entry.
We make sure that the “Hyper-V” entry is unchecked (as well as its sub-entries, which will be automatically disabled) and accept the changes. Again, after restarting Windows, this feature will be disabled.
From PowerShell
If what we want is to completely disable and uninstall this Windows feature, we can easily do it with a simple PowerShell command. To do this, we will simply open an advanced Windows console window, with administrator permissions, and execute the following command in it:
Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All
After disabling the Windows hypervisor using this command, the only thing left to do is reboot the system and that’s it. When restarting, we will see a message indicating that changes are being made. When Windows starts again Hyper-V will be disabled and completely uninstalled.
If we don’t want to completely uninstall it, and just want to disable it temporarily, we can use bcedit to disable it. This will leave the files on the PC, but the hypervisor won’t work, so it won’t cause any problems with other programs like VMware or VirtualBox. To do this, we can open a PowerShell window, also with Administrator permissions, and we will execute:
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
When you restart the PC, the hypervisor will be disabled. And we will be able to activate it again, should we need it, without having to download and install the optional feature.
With third-party apps
If we do not want to activate and deactivate this feature by executing the commands over and over again, there is a simple tool that will allow us to do it with a single click: Hyper V Switch. This simple program is in charge of analyzing the current state of Windows virtualization and, if it is activated, it allows us to deactivate it, while if it is deactivated it allows us to activate it. Simple as that.
The program will let us know if the service is active, if it is active, but not running (for example, in the absence of a reboot), if it is disabled, and if it is disabled, but still running (in the absence of a reboot). It will even tell us if Hyper-V is not installed on the system, but if so, it will not allow us to install it. This program is completely free and open source, and we can download it from the . This is the easiest option to activate and deactivate Hyper-V in Windows if we need to do it on a regular basis due to the space required by the operating systems we install, if we are always short of disk space, although we will not be able to free up space if We do not delete the files on the machine, since only deactivating it will not free up disk space.
How to tell if Hyper-V is enabled or disabled
If we don’t know if Hyper-V is enabled or disabled on our system, we can check it in several ways. The fastest and easiest is using a simple command PowerShell. This command will be in charge of searching for the Windows hypervisor feature and will indicate if it is enabled or disabled. To do this, we will open a PowerShell window again with Administrator permissions and execute this command:
Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V
If the “State” section indicates “Enabled” it means that we have it enabled. On the contrary, if it indicates “Disabled” it means that it is deactivated.
Another way to check if this feature is working or not is with this other command, which is responsible for checking the status of the service to see if it is working or not. We must run this in a PowerShell window with Administrator permissions, otherwise it won’t work.
get service | findstr vmcompute
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