How to Turn Off Hyper-V in Windows 11

Disabling Hyper-V on Windows: A Practical Guide

So, I had to turn off Hyper-V on my Windows machine to get some other virtualisation tasks running smoothly. Honestly, the instructions make it sound straightforward, but in practice, it can be a bit fiddly. Here’s what I learned after some trial, error, and a few reboots.

Method 1: Using the Classic Control Panel

This approach isn’t the snazziest, but it still does the job for many setups. Start by pressing Windows key + R to open the Run dialog. Type appwiz.cpl and hit Enter — this opens the list of installed programs and Windows features. On the left, click on “Turn Windows features on or off.” That’s where the magic happens.

A list will appear. Look for “Hyper-V” — it might be expanded or collapsed. If it’s there, you’ll see a checkbox labelled “Hyper-V Hypervisor.” Uncheck it. Sometimes there’s a parent checkbox that controls the entire Hyper-V feature; unchecking that often does the trick. Also, if you see options like “Windows Hypervisor Platform” or “Virtual Machine Platform,” those might also be related and could need disabling, especially if you’re troubleshooting nested virtualisation or WSL2.

Click OK and wait — it might take a moment. Windows will prompt you to restart your PC to apply the changes. Sometimes, that’s all it takes, but be aware — Hyper-V can be a bit sneaky and might not fully turn off if other features depend on it. After rebooting, you can run tpm.msc or check in PowerShell to see if Hyper-V is still active.

Method 2: Using PowerShell – The Quick Way

If the Control Panel isn’t cooperating, or you prefer a more direct approach, PowerShell is your mate. For best results, open it as administrator: press Windows key + X and select “Windows PowerShell (Admin)” or “Windows Terminal (Admin).” You can also search for “PowerShell,” right-click it, and choose “Run as administrator.”

Type the following command:

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

This command disables the Hyper-V hypervisor directly. It might take a bit of time, and you could see warnings about other features depending on Hyper-V. Once finished, reboot your PC. After restarting, run:

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

Check the State. If it says “Disabled,” you’re sorted. If not, run the disable command again or try editing the registry later. Additionally, if WSL 2 isn’t behaving seamlessly, disable “Virtual Machine Platform” and “Hypervisor Platform” with these commands:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName HypervisorPlatform

Method 3: The Registry Tweak (A Bit More Risky)

This method is for folks who’ve tried everything and still see Hyper-V lingering. It involves editing the registry, which can be a bit risky — so back up your registry first! Open the Run dialog with Windows key + R, type regedit, and hit Enter. Confirm any UAC prompts, then navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\HYPER-V

If that key exists, look for a DWORD named “HypervisorEnforcedManagement” and set its value to 0. Sometimes Hyper-V configs stick around even after you disable features, and editing the registry helps clear out those remnants. For faster results, you can create a small .reg file. Open Notepad and paste:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\HYPER-V]
"HypervisorEnforcedManagement"=dword:00000000

Save it as disable_hyperv.reg and double-click to merge into your registry. Then restart your PC. Be cautious — editing the registry can cause issues if you’re not familiar, but this can be quite effective when other methods don’t work.

Bottom line: Fully disabling Hyper-V can be tricky because Windows may keep some features alive or sneak them back in after updates. It’s worth checking all related features — like “Virtual Machine Platform” and “Windows Hypervisor Platform” — too. Note that on some Windows editions, like Windows 11 Home, Hyper-V isn’t even present, so no worries there.

After rebooting, you can verify hypervisor status by running systeminfo in Command Prompt or PowerShell and looking for Hyper-V entries. Alternatively, check in tpm.msc or try disabling Hyper-V via the GUI again.

Hopefully, this helps — it took me ages to figure out the best way. Some steps aren’t super obvious, but a bit of trial and error does the trick. Good luck, and I hope this saves someone a weekend of frustration!