How to disable Hyper-V on Windows 11

Hyper-V is Microsoft’s hardware virtualization product. It lets you create and run a software version of a computer, called a virtual machine. Each virtual machine acts like a complete computer, running an operating system and programs. This post will show you the three ways to disable Hyper-V on Windows 11/10.

Hyper-V runs each virtual machine in its own isolated space, which means you can run more than one virtual machine on the same hardware simultaneously. You might want to do this to avoid problems such as a crash affecting the other workloads or to give different people, groups or services access to different systems.

Hyper-V can help you:

Establish or expand a private cloud environment. Provide more flexible, on-demand IT services by moving to or expanding your use of shared resources and adjusting utilization as demand changes.
Use your hardware more effectively. Consolidate servers and workloads onto fewer, more powerful physical computers to use less power and physical space.
Improve business continuity. Minimize the impact of both scheduled and unscheduled downtime of your workloads.
Establish or expand a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Use a centralized desktop strategy with VDI can help you increase business agility and data security, as well as simplify regulatory compliance and manage desktop operating systems and applications. Deploy Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Virtualization Host (RD Virtualization Host) on the same server to make personal virtual desktops or virtual desktop pools available to your users.
Make development and test more efficient. Reproduce different computing environments without buying or maintaining all the hardware you’d need if you only used physical systems.

How to disable Hyper-V on Windows 11/10

You can disable Hyper-V in Windows 11/10 in 3 quick and easy ways. We’ll explore this topic under the methods outlined below in this section:

Via Control Panel
Via PowerShell
Via Registry Editor

Let’s take a look at the description of the step-by-step process in relation to each of the methods.

1] Disable Hyper-V via Control Panel

To disable Hyper-V via Control Panel, do the following:

Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
In the Run dialog box, type appwiz.cpl and hit Enter to open the Programs and Features applet.
In the window, on the left side, click the Turn Windows features on or off link.
Wait for the applet to populate.
Next, expand Hyper-V, expand Hyper-V Platform,
Clear the Hyper-V Hypervisor check box or you can just uncheck the parent Hyper-V folder.

You can now exit the Control Panel.

Scroll down a bit here, and you will see Windows Hypervisor Platform. For your information, this allows virtualization software to run on Windows Hypervisor, is required for running Docker images, and lets third-party software like Oracle Virtual-Box, QUEMU, and VMWare Workstation run using Hyper-V. It is not selected by default.

Read: How to enable Hyper-V on Windows 365 Cloud PC

2] Disable Hyper-V via PowerShell

To disable Hyper-V via PowerShell, do the following:

Press Windows key + X to open Power User Menu.
Tap A on the keyboard to launch PowerShell in admin/elevated mode.
In the PowerShell console, type in or copy and paste the command below and hit Enter:

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

Tip: Provided you have hardware virtualization support enabled in BIOS/UEFI, you can run the same command to quickly enable Hyper-V; just replace Disable with Enable in the command.

The process might take a while. Once the command executes, you can exit PowerShell.

3] Disable Hyper-V via Registry Editor

Since this is a registry operation, it is recommended that you back up the registry or create a system restore point as necessary precautionary measures.

To disable Hyper-V via Registry Editor in Windows 10, do the following:

Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
In the Run dialog box, type notepad and hit Enter to open Notepad.
Copy and paste the code below into the text editor.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard]
"RequireMicrosoftSignedBootChain"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard\Scenarios]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard\Scenarios\HypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity]
"WasEnabledBy"=dword:00000000
"Enabled"=dword:00000000

Now, click the File option from the menu and select Save As button.
Choose a location (preferably desktop) where you want to save the file.
Enter a name with .reg extension (eg; Disable_HyperV.reg).
Choose All Files from the Save as type drop-down list.
Double-click the saved .reg file to merge it.
If prompted, click on Run > Yes (UAC) > Yes > OK to approve the merge.
You can now delete the .reg file if you like.

That’s it on the three ways to disable Hyper-V on Windows 11/10!

Read: How to enable or disable Nested Virtualization for VMs in Hyper-V

Obinna@TWC

Obinna has completed B.Tech in Information & Communication Technology. He has worked as a System Support Engineer, primarily on User Endpoint Administration, as well as a Technical Analyst, primarily on Server/System Administration. He also has experience as a Network and Communications Officer. He has been a Windows Insider MVP (2020) and currently owns and runs a Computer Clinic.