{"id":642,"date":"2026-10-05T08:30:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T07:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/?p=642"},"modified":"2026-10-05T08:30:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T07:30:06","slug":"hyper-v-on-windows-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/?p=642","title":{"rendered":"Hyper-V on Windows 11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- Introduction --><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/microsoft.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft Hyper-V<\/a><\/strong> is a native, bare-metal (Type-1) hypervisor built directly into Windows 11. Unlike standard software-based virtualisation, Hyper-V runs directly on your computer&#8217;s hardware, allowing you to create and manage multiple virtual machines (VMs) with incredible speed and efficiency. Whether you need to test software across different operating systems or set up a secure lab environment, Hyper-V provides enterprise-grade virtualisation right on your desktop.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Prerequisites Section --><\/p>\n<h2>System Requirements: What You Need to Run It<\/h2>\n<p>Because Hyper-V interacts deeply with your hardware, your system must meet these specific prerequisites:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Operating System:<\/strong> Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education edition (Windows 11 Home does not support Hyper-V natively).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Processor:<\/strong> A 64-bit CPU with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT).<\/li>\n<li><strong>BIOS Features:<\/strong> Hardware-assisted virtualisation (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) and Data Execution Prevention (DEP) must be enabled in your system&#8217;s BIOS\/UEFI.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Memory:<\/strong> Minimum of 4 GB RAM, though 8 GB or more is highly recommended depending on how many VMs you plan to run simultaneously.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- How to Enable Section --><\/p>\n<h2>How to Enable Hyper-V and Its Management Tools<\/h2>\n<p>Hyper-V is turned off by default in Windows 11. To activate the hypervisor along with the <strong>Hyper-V Manager<\/strong> and command-line tools, follow these steps:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Click the Start Menu, type <code>Turn Windows features on or off<\/code>, and press <strong>Enter<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Locate <strong>Hyper-V<\/strong> in the list and expand it.<\/li>\n<li>Ensure both checkboxes are ticked: <strong>Hyper-V Management Tools<\/strong> and <strong>Hyper-V Platform<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Click <strong>OK<\/strong>. Windows will download and install the required components.<\/li>\n<li>When prompted, click <strong>Restart now<\/strong> to complete the installation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><!-- How to Use & Network Configuration Section --><\/p>\n<h2>How to Configure and Connect Your Network<\/h2>\n<p>To give your virtual machines internet access\u2014or isolate them entirely\u2014you need to use the <strong>Virtual Switch Manager<\/strong> inside the Hyper-V Manager app:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>To Connect to the Internet:<\/strong> Create an <strong>External Virtual Switch<\/strong>. This binds the virtual switch to your physical network card (Wi-Fi or Ethernet), allowing the VM to get its own IP address from your home or office router.<\/li>\n<li><strong>To Isolate the Network:<\/strong> Create an <strong>Internal<\/strong> or <strong>Private Virtual Switch<\/strong>. An <em>Internal<\/em> switch allows VMs to talk to each other and your host machine, but has no internet access. A <em>Private<\/em> switch completely isolates the VMs, allowing them to only communicate with one another\u2014perfect for safe malware testing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- NEW SECTION: Windows 11 VM Setup --><\/p>\n<h2>How to Create a Windows 11 Virtual Machine<\/h2>\n<p>Setting up a Windows 11 guest VM requires meeting the same strict security conditions as a physical machine, such as TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. Follow this sequence:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Download the official <strong>Windows 11 ISO file<\/strong> from Microsoft&#8217;s website.<\/li>\n<li>Open <strong>Hyper-V Manager<\/strong>, right-click your computer name in the left pane, and select <strong>New &gt; Virtual Machine<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>In the wizard, name your VM and select <strong>Generation 2<\/strong> (required for Windows 11 features like Secure Boot).<\/li>\n<li>Assign at least <strong>4096 MB (4 GB) of RAM<\/strong> and connect it to your network switch.<\/li>\n<li>On the installation options page, select <strong>Install an operating system from a bootable image file<\/strong> and browse to your downloaded Windows 11 ISO.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Crucial Step:<\/strong> Before starting the VM, right-click it in the list, go to <strong>Settings &gt; Security<\/strong>, and check the boxes for both <strong>Enable Secure Boot<\/strong> and <strong>Enable Trusted Platform Module (TPM)<\/strong>. Click Apply.<\/li>\n<li>Double-click the VM, click <strong>Start<\/strong>, and follow the standard on-screen Windows 11 installation prompts.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><!-- NEW SECTION: Ubuntu Linux VM Setup --><\/p>\n<h2>How to Create an Ubuntu Linux Virtual Machine<\/h2>\n<p>Hyper-V supports Linux seamlessly, and Microsoft even offers a shortcut tool to get Ubuntu running in minutes without downloading an external file:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Quick Method (Recommended):<\/strong> Open <strong>Hyper-V Manager<\/strong> and click <strong>Quick Create<\/strong> in the right-hand Actions panel. Select <strong>Ubuntu<\/strong> from the operating system list and click <strong>Create Virtual Machine<\/strong>. Hyper-V will automatically download and install a fully configured, optimized Ubuntu environment for you.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Manual Method (ISO):<\/strong> Download the latest Ubuntu LTS ISO file from the official website. Run the <strong>New Virtual Machine Wizard<\/strong>, choose <strong>Generation 2<\/strong>, assign your RAM, and target your Ubuntu ISO file.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Linux Security Adjustment:<\/strong> If you install manually via a Generation 2 wizard, you must turn off Windows-specific boot signatures. Go to the VM&#8217;s <strong>Settings &gt; Security<\/strong>, change the Secure Boot template to <strong>Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority<\/strong> (or disable Secure Boot entirely), otherwise Ubuntu will fail to boot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- Performance Acceleration Section --><\/p>\n<h2>How to Add Acceleration for Better Performance<\/h2>\n<p>Virtual machines can sometimes feel sluggish, but Hyper-V allows you to inject hardware acceleration to boost speed:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Enhanced Session Mode:<\/strong> Turn this on in the Hyper-V settings to enable clipboard sharing, audio redirection, and seamless desktop resizing via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dynamic Memory:<\/strong> Enable this within your individual VM settings. It allows Hyper-V to dynamically scale RAM up or down based on what the VM actively needs, preventing an idle machine from hogging host resources.<\/li>\n<li><strong>GPU Partitioning (GPU-P):<\/strong> For advanced users, you can use PowerShell to share your physical graphics card&#8217;s rendering power with a Windows 11 guest VM, drastically speeding up video playback and graphic-heavy tasks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- Pros and Cons Section --><\/p>\n<h2>The Pros and Cons of Windows 11 Hyper-V<\/h2>\n<p>Before moving your workflow entirely to Hyper-V, consider how it stacks up against third-party alternatives:<\/p>\n<table style=\"width:100%; border-collapse: collapse; margin: 20px 0;\">\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"background-color: #f2f2f2; border-bottom: 2px solid #ccc;\">\n<th style=\"padding: 10px; text-align: left;\">Pros<\/th>\n<th style=\"padding: 10px; text-align: left;\">Cons<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"border-bottom: 1px solid #eee;\">\n<td style=\"padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;\"><strong>Bare-Metal Performance:<\/strong> Runs directly on hardware, offering much faster execution than traditional software hypervisors.<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;\"><strong>No Native Home Edition:<\/strong> Requires a paid upgrade to Windows 11 Pro if you are running the consumer version.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"border-bottom: 1px solid #eee;\">\n<td style=\"padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;\"><strong>Seamless Integration:<\/strong> No third-party downloads required; works perfectly with Windows security features like VBS.<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;\"><strong>Software Conflicts:<\/strong> Can sometimes cause performance degradation in third-party tools like VirtualBox or VMware.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;\"><strong>Snapshot Management:<\/strong> &#8220;Checkpoints&#8221; let you save the exact state of a VM and roll back instantly if an experiment fails.<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;\"><strong>Poorer Legacy OS Support:<\/strong> Struggles more with older Linux distributions or legacy operating systems compared to competitors.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft Hyper-V is a native, bare-metal (Type-1) hypervisor built directly into Windows 11. Unlike standard software-based virtualisation, Hyper-V runs directly on your computer&#8217;s hardware, allowing you to create and manage multiple virtual machines (VMs) with incredible speed and efficiency. Whether you need to test software across different operating systems or set up a secure lab&hellip; <br \/> <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/?p=642\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,25],"tags":[64,73,32],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-security","tag-hyper-v","tag-virtualisation","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions\/646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrpaulclarke.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}