How to disable Hyper-V in Windows 11

You might want to disable Hyper-V if you encounter performance issues in other hypervisors. Here’s how to do so on a Windows 11 machine.

Hyper-V ranks among the top three hypervisors besides VMWare and VirtualBox, and its spot is well earned. In addition to its easy-to-use interface, Hyper-V comes bundled with almost all versions of Windows 11, making it quite accessible as you don’t have to jump through multiple hoops when setting up virtual machines on your system.

However, the program can interfere with other virtualization software, causing slowdowns and performance issues when you boot a virtual machine. Moreover, the fact that it’s built into Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, and Education versions also serves as a double-edged sword because removing it can be quite cumbersome for beginners. So, we’ve put together a guide containing all the methods you can use to disable Hyper-V on your Windows 11 PC.

How to disable Hyper-V in Windows 11 using Control Panel

The simplest way to turn off Hyper-V on your PC involves navigating through Windows Features in the Control Panel.

Type “Control panel” into the Search Bar and click on the Control Panel suggestion.
Click on Programs.
Select the Turn Windows features on or off option.
Scroll down until you spot Hyper-V in the Windows Features window and click on the checkmark next to it to disable Hyper-V.
Likewise, disable the Virtual Machine Platform.
Press the OK button and restart your PC.

How to disable Hyper-V in Windows 11 using Terminal commands

If you want a quick method to turn off Hyper-V without uninstalling it, you can run the BCDEdit command on Windows Terminal. Since BCDEdit allows you to modify the boot parameters for applications, you can use it to prevent Hyper-V from starting up every time you boot your system.

Right-click on the Windows button and choose Terminal (Admin).
Grant administrator privileges to Terminal when prompted by Windows
Type the following command and hit the Enter key.
```
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
```
Restart your PC.

Alternatively, you can use the Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature command to get rid of Hyper-V. All you have to do is replace the BCDEdit command with the following code:

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

If these commands don’t work, you might want to switch from Command Prompt to Windows PowerShell Windows Terminal and run the DISM command.

Click on the drop-down arrow next to the new tab button and choose Command prompt.

Type the following command and press Enter.

dism /online /disable-feature /featurename:microsoft-hyper-v-all

Restart your system

You’d also want to disable Hyper-V net adapters if Windows rolls back the changes during the restart.

Switch back to Windows PowerShell and run the following command:

get-netadapter|where-object {$_.interfacedescription -like "*hyper-v*"}|Disable-NetAdapter

A screenshot depicting the command to disable Hyper-V net adapters.

As always, restart your system after executing the command.

How to disable Device Guard, Credential Guard, and Memory Isolation in Windows 11

If you still encounter issues with other hypervisors, you should consider disabling three Hyper-V-related features: Device Guard, Credential Guard, and Memory Isolation. The Registry Editor is a powerful tool that allows you to disable all three, but you should follow these steps carefully as modifying registry values can easily break Windows if you aren’t cautious enough.

Right-click on the Start button and choose Run.
Type “regedit” and press Enter.
Press Yes when Windows asks you to grant administrator privileges.

Paste the following address into the Search Bar and press Enter.

ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlDeviceGuard

Right-click on the screen, choose new -> DWORD (32-bit) Value and give it the name EnableVirtualizationBasedSecurity.
Double-click on the new DWORD Value you just created, set its value data to 0, and click on the OK button.
Next, enter the following address into the Search Bar and hit the Enter key.
```
ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlLsa
```
Create a new DWORD Value and name it LsaCfgFlags.
You can disable Credential Guard by setting the value of LsaCfgFlags to 0.

Finally, paste the following address into the Search Bar and hit Enter.

ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlDeviceGuardScenariosHypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity

Change the value data of the Enabled DWORD from 1 to 0 to disable memory isolation.

The three features are meant to safeguard your PC from malware, so you should only disable them as a last resort if you continue to encounter the same errors in other hypervisors even after disabling Hyper-V.

When you should and shouldn’t use Hyper-V

Many users report increased performance in games and emulators after disabling Hyper-V, so you might want to remove this hypervisor if you want to boost the frame rates in your system.

That being said, Hyper-V remains one of the best ways to set up and use virtual machines on Windows, so you’d want to keep it enabled if you don’t intend to run games or other hypervisors on your system. Be sure to check our guide on how to install Hyper-V if you want to use the hypervisor on a Windows 11 machine.