Difficulty disabling Hyper-V

Question

Difficulty disabling Hyper-V

Johanderson Marinho 0

Good evening, everyone! How are things?

I need to disable Hyper-V, VBS (Virtualization-Based Security), and Device Guard so I can enable the AMD-V virtualization feature for my VMs (VirtualBox and/or VMware). The feature is already enabled for the VMs via commands, but whenever I start them, the error "Neither Intel-X or AMD-V found" appears.

The EVE-NG Community VM is configured to use bridged networking. I have also tested various paravirtualization settings (KVM, default, none, etc.) in both VirtualBox and VMware, but the error persists.

When I run the systeminfo command, Hyper-V still shows up as active, along with VBS.

How to disable the hypervisor on Windows 11 Pro (22H2) to use VMware.

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

To stop Windows 11 from launching its built-in hypervisor and free up AMD-V for VMware or VirtualBox, you need to disable the boot hypervisor, turn off Core Isolation Memory Integrity, and disable Virtualization-Based Security (VBS)/Device Guard.

First, open Command Prompt as administrator. Click Start, type cmd, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as administrator. Run:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

If you also want to disable the Hyper-V optional Windows features, open PowerShell as administrator and run:

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

Next, disable Memory Integrity. Press Windows Key + I to open Settings, then go to Privacy & security > Windows Security > Device security. Click Core isolation details and turn Memory integrity Off.

You can also disable VBS through Group Policy. Press Windows Key + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Guard. Double-click Turn on Virtualization Based Security and set it to Disabled.

If VBS remains enabled, you can disable it through the Registry. Press Windows Key + R, type regedit, and press Enter. Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard

Find EnableVirtualizationBasedSecurity and set its value to 0.

Finally, restart the computer. These changes include boot-level settings, so a restart is required. After restarting, run systeminfo and check that the hypervisor and VBS indicators show that they are not running or enabled.

If VMware or VirtualBox still reports that AMD-V is unavailable after the restart, the next things to check are whether Secure Boot is enabled in the BIOS/UEFI and whether Credential Guard or VBS is being enforced through corporate Group Policy.

If the above response helps answer your question, remember to "Accept Answer" so that others in the community facing similar issues can easily find the solution. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

hth

Marcin

Answer 2

Third-party virtualization apps such as VMware and VirtualBox cannot run reliably while the Hyper-V hypervisor, VBS features, or related protections are active. This behavior is by design because only one software component at a time can use the hardware virtualization extensions.

Use this sequence on Windows 11 Pro to disable the Microsoft hypervisor stack:

Check whether the Hyper-V hypervisor is running.
- Open System Information by running msinfo32.exe.
- In Details, look for:
  - A hypervisor has been detected. Features required for Hyper-V will not be displayed.
Disable the Hyper-V hypervisor feature.
- Control Panel path:
  - Programs and Features → Turn Windows features on or off
  - Expand Hyper-V → Hyper-V Platform
  - Clear Hyper-V Hypervisor
- Or run one of these as administrator:
```
   Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-Hypervisor
```
```
   DISM /Online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V-Hypervisor
```
Disable dependent security features.
- Memory Integrity and Credential Guard depend on Hyper-V.
- These must also be disabled, otherwise the hypervisor can remain active.
- Supported management methods include Microsoft Intune, Group Policy, or registry entries.
If Hyper-V still remains active, disable the full Hyper-V feature set and prevent the hypervisor from launching.
- Warning: this changes Windows virtualization behavior and can affect security features and Hyper-V-based workloads.
```
   Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All
   bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
```
Restart the PC.
Verify again in msinfo32.exe.
- The hypervisor-detected message should no longer appear.

Important:

VBS uses hardware virtualization and the Windows hypervisor to provide protections such as Memory Integrity.
Disabling Hyper-V can reduce security protections on the device.
For VMware or VirtualBox, Hyper-V, Memory Integrity, and Credential Guard must all be off.