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How can I find out whether Hyper-V is currently running on my Windows 8.1 Pro System?

Reason: Some installs automatically enable Hyper-V (e. g. the Visual Studio Android Emulator addons). I am mostly using VMWare and VBox for Virtualization, and since Hyper-V is a Hypervisor (virtualizing host too), I want to avoid conflicts (double virtualization).

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
41

You can check if the services are running:

Win+R -> services.msc Look in the list for all services beginning with Hyper-V. If any of them are Running, it's on. (Specifically, the core of it I believe is labelled Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management)

You can check the system log to see if any activity has occurred guide here:

  1. Open Event Viewer. Click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Event Viewer.

  2. Open the Hyper-V-Hypervisor event log. In the navigation pane, expand Applications and Services Logs, expand Microsoft, expand Hyper-V-Hypervisor, and then click Operational.

  3. If Windows hypervisor is running, no further action is needed. If Windows hypervisor is not running, perform the following steps.

  4. Open the System log. (In the navigation pane, expand Windows Logs and then select System.)

  5. Look for events from Hyper-V-Hypervisor for more information. For example, event ID 41 indicates a problem with the BIOS configuration: “Hyper-V launch failed; Either VMX not present or not enabled in BIOS.” (To filter for these events, from the Actions pane, click Filter Current Log, and then for Event sources, specify “Hyper-V-Hypervisor”.)

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  • Thank you! The services way seems quickest to find out. For the last way, I would need the servername, it did not work with the name of my host or localhost (command returned "error: description = not found").
    – Andreas Reiff
    Jan 15, 2016 at 9:51
  • @AndreasReiff Fair point, will remove this option.
    – Jonno
    Jan 15, 2016 at 9:53
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    Wrong. Hyper-V can be deactivated by a boot option. The service "vmms" will be running anyway if it's installed. So this isn't useful. I need another method that works.
    – ygoe
    Mar 1, 2016 at 22:14
  • Thanks. In my case (Windows 10 + Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550), I figured out, through the System Log, that Hypervisor launch failed; Second Level Address Translation is required to launch the hypervisor. This is true, Q9550 lacks SLAT. Will get VirtualBox then.
    – Neurotransmitter
    Mar 14, 2018 at 19:30
  • As ygoe states, If you set in bcdedit hypervisorlaunchtype Off, this still says running despite hypervisor being off.
    – user5389726598465
    Nov 24, 2019 at 21:43
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Run Powershell as Administrator.

PS C:\Windows\system32>

Run the command:

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V

If it is enabled, you'll see the answer like this:

FeatureName      : Microsoft-Hyper-V
DisplayName      : Hyper-V Platform
Description      : Provides the services that you can use to create and manage virtual machines and their resources.
RestartRequired  : Possible
State            : Enabled
CustomProperties :

More info here and here.

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  • What's the difference of this and get-service | findstr vmcompute ? This one says Disabled, and the other one says Running.
    – Niko Fohr
    Sep 17, 2022 at 10:29
  • But Windows Sandbox cat enbale Hyper-V anyway.
    – Alex78191
    Sep 18, 2022 at 15:29
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Powershell : get-service | findstr vmcompute

Running vmcompute Hyper-V Host Compute Service

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  • 1
    If you set in bcdedit hypervisorlaunchtype Off, this still says running despite hypervisor being off.
    – user5389726598465
    Nov 24, 2019 at 21:43
  • @user5389726598465 I've turned it off via bcedit and it does not show up in the output here. Had you actually turned Hyper-V off properly?
    – N.J.Dawson
    Jan 3, 2020 at 8:43
  • Also works without Admin rights
    – Eelco van Vliet
    Nov 29, 2022 at 13:02
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In my case with the cmdlet

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V

Hyper-V was enabled but hypervisorlaunchtype was off

So I checked the status of hypervisorlaunchtype with (look for hypervisorlaunchtype):

BCDEdit /enum

And I enabled hypervisorlaunchtype with the following command as administrator:

Bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
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0

In "windows start search" search for "windows features" and you will find Hyper-v check box.

Now you can not only check the current status, but you also can change it.

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