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How to Disable Hyper-V in Windows 10 and 11

Not everyone needs the Hyper-V feature in Windows 10 and 11, or maybe, you were using it for your VMs, but right now, you want it disabled. Hyper-V comes preinstalled with Windows 10 and 11, so you can simply enable it by going to Windows Settings.

Once Hyper-V is enabled, you will be able to create and run virtual desktops on the Windows computer, and if you move on from Hyper-V to another virtualization platform, you may want to turn off the Hyper-V feature on your Windows PC.

Key Takeaways

  • Hyper-V allows you to run virtual desktops on a Windows computer
  • The Hyper-V feature is preinstalled on Windows 10 and 11 versions
  • Disabling the Hyper-V feature on Windows allows you to run specific applications or other virtualization services.

Why You May Need to Disable Hyper-V

In other to run another virtualization software, you will need to disable Hyper-V on your Windows computer. Also, disabling Hyper-V may speed up your computer for specific tasks – mostly other hypervisors. You can’t totally remove the Hyper-V feature from your Windows 10 or 11 PC because it is built into the OS, you can only disable it.

How to Check if Hyper-V Is Running on Windows 10 and 11

Before you conclude that you may need to disable the Hyper-V feature on your Windows PC, first, you need to verify if the feature is enabled and running.

  • Go to Control Panel and open “Programs and Features”
  • On the side pane, click on “Turn Windows features on or off”

Look out for the “Hyper-V” feature and confirm if it’s enabled or not.

How to Disable Hyper-V

Disabling the Hyper-V feature is quite an easy one, you have to follow the same procedure to find out whether it is enabled or not. However, aside from using the Control Panel, there are other ways to disable Hyper-V on a Windows OS computer.

Using Control Panel (Windows Optional Features)

Windows has multiple optional features and the Hyper-V is one of them; these features are optional because you can choose to turn them on/off anytime you wish, or in need of them. These features are accessible via the Control Panel; you access the feature via the Control Panel and uncheck the box.

  • Open the Control Panel by right-clicking on the Start icon and selecting the control panel option from the shown list.
  • Go to “Programs and Features.”
  • On the side pane, click on “Turn Windows features on or off.”
  • Look out for the “Hyper-V” feature and uncheck the Hyper-V box to turn off the feature.
  • Also, scroll down a bit on the Optional Features prompt and uncheck Windows Hypervisor Platform (if it was enabled too)
  • Click “OK” to save the settings and exit. You may want to reboot your PC for the changes to effect immediately.

Using Windows Optional Features

Open Control Panel:

  • Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box.
  • Type control and press Enter to open the Control Panel.

Access Programs and Features:

  • In the Control Panel, click on Programs.
  • Under Programs and Features, click on Turn Windows features on or off.

Disable Hyper-V:

  • In the Windows Features dialog box, locate Hyper-V.
  • Uncheck the box next to Hyper-V to disable it.
  • Click OK to apply the changes.

Restart Your Computer:

  • You will be prompted to restart your computer to apply the changes. Click on Restart now.

Using BCDEDIT

An alternative to using a Control Panel for disabling the Hyper-V feature is using the BCDEDIT CLI utility. This will have you run some CMD commands, and you need admin user access on the system being used.

  • Launch Command Prompt (Admin) or PowerShell (Admin)
  • Type this command into the CLI and hit the Enter button: bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
  • Close the CMD interface if the command returns a successful message, then reboot the computer.

Using Command Prompt or PowerShell (via DISM)

Although the BCDEDIT tool runs through the CMD, there’s another way to use the CMD to disable Hyper-V on Windows without launching the BCDEDIT tool – using the DISM tool. (Note: The Command Prompt and PowerShell interfaces are the same and use the same commands, but PowerShell is a newer utility intended to replace Command Prompt on newer Windows OS versions)

  • Open Command Prompt (Admin) or PowerShell (Admin). Right-click on the Start icon and you’ll see the options.
  • Enter this command: dism /online /disable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-hyper-v-all
  • The DISM utility will turn off Hyper-V and all its sister features on your Windows computer.
  • Exit the CMD when the task is complete and restart the computer.

How to Disable Related Features

The Hyper-V feature works together with some other optional features found in the control panel. When you disable the Hyper-V feature, it is also important to disable all other features that are related to Windows hypervisor.

  • Open Control Panel
  • Go to Programs and Features
  • On the side pane, click on “Turn Windows features on or off.”
  • Scroll down and look out for any Hypervisor-related feature that is enabled, then disable them. Most importantly, disable the Windows Hypervisor Platform feature.

Device Guard and Credential Guard

Device Guard and Credential Guard can prevent your new virtualization service from performing optimally; these features work best with Hyper-V and not other virtualization services like VMware ESXi. To disable this feature, you need to edit the Windows Registry, and this is a high-risk action, so you must be careful.

  • Press the Windows Key + R to open the Run dialogue box.
  • Type regedit into the box and hit the enter button to Registry Editor.
  • In the Registry Editor, go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
  • You can simply copy the path above and paste it into the Registry’s address bar.
  • When you’re on the Lsa page, look to the right pane, find LsaCfgFlags, and double-click on it to open. If you can’t find any LsaCfgFlags entry, create a new one by right-clicking on the Lsa folder icon on the left pane 🡺New 🡺 DWORD (32-bit) value 🡺 enter 0 and name the entry LsaCfgFlags.
  • If the LsaCfgFlags was already existing, open it and set the value to “0” if it was another number.
  • Click OK to save changes to the LsaCfgFlags DWORD value.

It doesn’t end there, next, you need to find the Device Guard entry in the Registry Editor. So, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard

  • In the DeviceGuard page, look for EnableVirtualizationBasedSecurity entry, if it doesn’t exist, create one as explained in the previous step.
  • If the entry exists, double-click on it and set the value to “0”
  • Click OK to save changes and exit the Registry Editor entirely – you’re done.
  • Restart the computer afterward.

Disable Memory Integrity (Virtualization-Based Security)

Another feature you may want to turn off after disabling Hyper-V is the memory integrity, which is part of Windows Core Isolation. The function is this feature is to prevent hackers from launching high-security processes on your system using malicious codes. By default, this feature is disabled on Windows OS, to prevent app conflicts, but in case it is enabled on your PC, here’s how to disable it.

  • Open the Windows Settings app and go to Privacy & Security
  • In the Privacy and Security page, click on Windows Security, then click on the “Open Windows Security” button.
  • Look for Device Security and click on it.
  • Click on Core Isolation and turn off Memory Integrity (if it was turned on)
  • Close the Settings page and restart your PC

Remove the Hyper-V Virtual Network Adapter

If the settings above still don’t let you run your apps seamlessly, then you should consider uninstalling the Hyper-V network adapter from Device Management.

  • Open Device Manager (right-click on the Start icon and select the option).
  • In the Device Manager page, expand the Network Adapters section to find the Hyper-V Virtual network adapters and remove them. If you don’t find any Hyper-V adapter listed, click on the “View” menu option and select “Show hidden devices.”
  • Now, uninstall the Hyper-V Virtual Ethernet Adapter if you can find it and any other Hyper-V-related virtual adapter.

(Note: Do not uninstall Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter).

  • Restart the PC when you’re done.

Post-Disabling Steps

After disabling Hyper-V and all its related settings and features, reboot your system and try running all your important applications to ensure they are still accessible. If you disabled Hyper-V because you needed to restore a virtual machine built on a different hypervisor, then you should go with the steps below.

How to Restore Virtual Machines

You should back up your Hyper-V VMs and export them to another storage or virtual environment before disabling the features on your Windows system. However, if your VM is hosted on another hypervisor, you need to install the hypervisor software, create a new VM, and use the disk image file of the old VM to restore its data and files to the new one you just created.

How to Recover Hypervisor Files

DiskInternals VMFS Recovery is a popular and highly recommendable virtual hard drive recovery software. The program runs on all Windows systems, regardless of the OS version or edition. DiskInternals VMFS Recovery also has a built-in wizard to help the users through the process.

To use DiskInternals VMFS Recovery in recovering your hypervisor files, download and install the app on your PC, then launch it and scan the hard drive where the hypervisor files are stored; you should see the recovered hypervisor files appear with a red asterisk – upgrade your DiskInternals VMFS Recovery software to save the files back.

Conclusion

This article details everything you should do to disable Hyper-V and all its related settings from your Windows system. The Hyper-V feature can disturb you from running multiple advanced software programs, so you should disable it first. However, if along the line, the processes seem to confusing, do not forget to seek professional assistance.

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