Hyper v manager windows 10 home

Hyper-V is Microsoft’s virtualization platform. It is available on Windows Server operating systems and Microsoft has also added the Hyper-V functionality to Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11.

Unfortunately, the Hyper-V feature is only available in Windows 10 Professional, Enterprise, and Education editions. You can’t install it on Windows 10 Home edition by default.

However, using the steps in this article, we’ll show you how to enable Hyper-V in the Windows 10 Home edition.

Does Your System Support Virtualization?

Before moving forward, we need to check if our system supports virtualization. Hardware virtualization is required for Hyper-V to function correctly. Otherwise, you can use other virtualization platforms like Virtualbox and VMWare.

There are four basic requirements for Hyper-V to be installed on a Windows 10 computer:

• VM Monitor Mode Extensions
• Virtualization enabled in firmware
• Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
• Data Execution Prevention

All four of these requirements can be easily checked through a Command Prompt cmdlet. Run the following cmdlet in an elevated Command Prompt and obtain the results on the four requirements:

systeminfo

This will generate a list, and you will find the section “Hyper-V Requirements” at the end of the list containing the details of the 4 requirements, as in the image below:

If these requirements are met, the results will display “Yes.” However, if you find that “Virtualization Enabled In Firmware” states “No,” you need to enable it using the guide below.

Enable Virtualization in Firmware/BIOS

Most modern computers support all the requirements of Hyper-V. But some systems have virtualization disabled from BIOS. You can go to the BIOS setup computer at the startup and enable Virtualization using the following steps:

1. Restart your computer and enter the BIOS setup using the hotkey.

2. Here, look for the “Virtualization” tab and click on it, or use the arrow keys on the keyboard to highlight it and press Enter.

3. Now enable Virtualization.

   

4. Now save the new settings and exit BIOS. The system will now reboot normally.

When it reboots, continue with the following steps to install and enable Hyper-V.

Install Hyper-V in Windows 10 Home

Note: Since Windows Home edition comes without Hyper-V, you must first install it. If you have the Pro, Education, or Enterprise editions, then you may skip this step and proceed to the next section of this article. To check which edition you have, type in winver in the Run Command box and obtain your operating system’s details.

Follow the steps below to install and enable Hyper-V in Windows 10 Home:

1. Download Hyper-V Installer by clicking on the following link:

     Hyper-V installer and enabler for Windows 10 Home (317 bytes, 34,966 hits)

2. Once downloaded, right-click on the file and select Run as Administrator from the context menu. This will trigger the installation script.

   

3. If prompted with a UAC, click Yes.

   

   It may take some time to complete the installation. Please let it complete without interruption.

4. Once complete, press Y to continue.

   

   The computer will now reboot and update.

Once rebooted, Hyper-V will have installed and automatically enabled on your Windows Home.

How to Enable Hyper-V on Windows 10 (Pro, Enterprise, Education)

The method given above automatically enables Hyper-V as well as installing it on a Windows Home. However, if you are running Windows Pro, Education, or Enterprise edition, then you can enable Hyper-V using any one of the following methods.

Enable Hyper-V from Optional Features

Since Hyper-V is an optional feature that one can enable when needed, you can enable it from the Optional Features applet. Here is how:

1. Open the Optional Features applet by typing in optionalfeatures in the Run Command box.

   

2. Now look for the “Hyper-V” option from the list and check the box next to it. Then click Ok.

   

3. You will now see a window applying the changes. Click Close when it is done.

   

Hyper-V will now be installed and enabled. You can now access the Hyper-V manager by searching for it in the search box in the taskbar or through the Start menu.

Alternatively, you can also use the other 2 command-line methods to enable Hyper-V on Windows 10.

Enable Hyper-V from Command Prompt

Follow these steps to enable Hyper-V using the DISM command tool in the Command Prompt:

1. Run the following cmdlet in an elevated Command Prompt:

   DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /All /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V

   

2. When asked, enter Y to restart the computer:

   

The computer will now restart, When it does, Hyper-V should be enabled successfully.

Enable Hyper-V from Windows PowerShell

If you’d rather prefer to use Windows PowerShell, here is how to enable Hyper-V:

1. Run the following cmdlet in an elevated PowerShell:

   Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All

   

2. When asked, enter Y and hit Enter to restart the computer:

   

   When the computer reboots, Hyper-V will have installed successfully.

These are the 3 methods to enable Hyper-V in Windows 10, provided that the hardware is supported and Hyper-V is installed.

How to Disable Hyper-V in Windows 10 (Home, Pro, Enterprise, Education)

If you don’t want this functionality on your computer, you can always disable it. There are three ways to disable it:

• From Optional Features

  1. Open the Optional Features applet by typing in optionalfeatures in the Run Command box.

     

  2. Uncheck the box next to Hyper-V and click Ok.

     

  3. When done, click Restart now to finalize the changes.

     

• From Command Prompt

  Run the following cmdlet in an elevated Command Prompt to disable Hyper-V:

  DISM /Online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V-all

  If asked for a reboot, enter Y for Yes.

  

• From PowerShell

  Run the following cmdlet in an elevated PowerShell to disable Hyper-V:

  Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All

  If asked for a reboot, enter Y for Yes.

  

Closing Thoughts

Sometimes Hyper-V is very useful even for home users. It can be used to test and evaluate new software without hurting the host system. But there are times when enabling virtualization support or installing Hyper-V is not recommended.

Hyper-V requires some system resources to run its virtual machines. For example, if you have 4 GB RAM, you won’t be able to give any resources to the virtual machine. So it would not be wise to enable Hyper-V functionality.

For what purpose do you want to enable Hyper-V functionality on your Windows 10 Home computer? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Also see:

Hyper-V is a Microsoft-owned Windows Hypervisor platform (Type-1) that allows users to run virtual machines with high performance. However, if you are using Windows 10 Home Edition, then you will not have the “Hyper-V” option in the “Turns Windows feature on or off” to run virtual computers because it is available only for Windows 10  Professional, Education, and Enterprise Editions (know the difference). However, still, there is a way to easily download, install and enable the Hyper-V feature on Windows 10 Home using the command line.

Requirements:

• Windows 10 Home OS
• Administrator access
• Virtualization must be enabled in BIOS to create VMs
• Active Internet connection

Although, in modern systems Virtualization is enabled in BIOS by default, however, to confirm it, just right-click on Taskbar and select Task manager  ⇒ Performance and find whether it is on or off.

Well, if you don’t want to use Hyper-V then try out some other best third-party Virtual machine creator software programs.

Steps to Activate Hyper-v Feature on Windows 10 Home

Here are the simple steps that we can follow to download and install Hypervisor using a Command-line script.

1. Script to download Hyper v for Windows 10 home

There is a code available on Github that allows users to automate the process of downloading and enabling the Hyper-V feature. Here is that

pushd "%~dp0" dir /b %SystemRoot%servicingPackages*Hyper-V*.mum >hyper-v.txt for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . hyper-v.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:"%SystemRoot%servicingPackages%%i" del hyper-v.txt Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Hyper-V -All /LimitAccess /ALL pause

What we have to do is – Right-click on the Desktop and select  Text Document. A new file will be created, now open it and paste the above code in that. After that rename that file to Hyper-V Enabler.bat

Alternative- However, to make all this easy for you, we already have created this bat file that you can download directly using this link.

2. Run Hyper-V Enabler Batch file

Once you downloaded or created a Batch file with the given code by yourself on your Desktop. Right-click on that and select “Run as Administrator“.

3. Feature installation will start

As we run the Batch file, it will open a Command prompt to run the code saved in it. Make sure you have an active internet connection on your system to download files required to install and activate Hyper-V on Windows 10 Home. This will take some time depending upon your network speed.

4.  Restart your Windows 10 System

Once the installation is complete, the Hyper-v will automatically get enabled on your system. Thus, to make changes into effect, the system will ask you to restart it. Simply type Y on your command terminal and press the Enter key.

5.  Run Hyper-V Manager on Windows 10 home

Let’s check whether this Microsoft Windows Hypervisor feature is on our system or not. For that, in the search box type- Turn Windows features on or off, as its icon appears, click to open it.

There scroll and find -Hyper-V and make sure all its tools are checked as shown in the above screenshot, if not already, and then hit the OK button.

Now, we know this free Microsoft virtualization software is on our system, it’s time to run it and start creating virtual machines.

Go to Windows 10 Search box again or simply press the Win key on your keyboard and this time type- Hyper-V, click on its icon when appears.

Alternatively, we can use a command to run Hypervisor- open CMD or the RUN box (shortcut key- Win key + R) and type – virtmgmt.msc

6.  Create a Virtual Machine

1. To create a virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager, right-click on the connected server and select the New option.
   
2. Click on the Next button and give some name to your virtual machine. For example Ubuntu.
3. Choose the Generation for your Virtual machine. If the operating system you want to install supports 32-bit or 64-bit and requires legacy BIOS features then go for Generation 1. Whereas for the latest features and only 64-bit with UEFI boot supported OS users can go for Generation 2. However, you can leave the default selection as it is if you are not sure about this.
4. Assign the amount of RAM or Memory you want to use.
5. Configure Network. For that select the Default Switch from the Drop-down box. If you don’t have then first create one.
6. Select the Size of Virtual Disk.
7. Assign the ISO file of the OS you want to install.

To get a step by step guide you can see our article- How to use hyper-v to install Linux Virtual machine on Windows 10

7. Uninstall or Disable Hyper-V feature on Windows 10 Home

Hyper-V is not compatible completely with other Type- 2 virtualizers, even though the latest version of Vmware and Virtualbox can run along with it, there will be a huge performance issue. Thus, if you are planning to use Vmware player or Virtualbox on Windows 10 Home, then first, Deactivate the Hyper-V.

To uninstall this feature, we need to uncheck it from the “Turns Windows features on or off” section. To open it you can either find it from the Search box of Windows 10 or simply press Win Key + R to open the RUN box and type- optionalfeatures.exe

Now uncheck the box given for Hyper-v.

7.1 Command line to disable windows virtualization feature (optional)

If you want then can use a very straightforward method that is either using command prompt or PowerShell command line-

On Powershell run this

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All

Whereas on Command prompt, use this one-

dism.exe /Online /Disable-Feature:Microsoft-Hyper-V-All

7.2 Restart your system

To make sure the hypervisor feature gets disabled completely, now restart your system. This uninstalls it completely.

7.3- In case you want to enable it again (optional)

In the future if you want to enable Microsoft Hypervisor again then you don’t need to run the Batch file this time, just got Windows Features and select it. Or use the command line-

Powershell

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V

CMD

DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /All /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V

Also See- Hyper-V vs VirtualBox: A basic comparison



Closing thoughts

Well, this was the quick way to use the Microsoft Windows hypervisor on Windows 10 Home edition. In case you are facing any problem while enabling it, let’s know, the comment section is all yours…