Side by Side – Virtual Box + Hyper-V (Windows 8 Pro) – Solve with Different Boot Configuration

 Side by Side – Virtual Box + Hyper-V (Windows 8 Pro) – Solve with Different Boot Configuration

As excited as you, I recently started working on Windows 8, wanted to run my old Virtual Box VMs instead of converting/importing them in Hyper-V. Without a hitch I installed Virtual Box on my fresh Windows 8 Pro, being very curious and greedy I also wanted to use Hyper-V, but due to project work couldn’t really get all my VM’s completely imported in Hyper-V, but for the sake of future use, I added the feature of Hyper-V in Windows 8 Pro, assuming that the Hyper-V technology from Virtual Box will run seamless as use to run on earlier Windows 7 64bit, I started my VMs in Virtual Box and what a mess I was stopped with an Error,

What is this? Why can’t I run my old Virtual Box enabled VM’s with Virtual Box any more. Well that’s something not a new story, to cut the story short, it because both the technology won’t work side-by-side because they rely on the same feature Hypervision, and only one can use it at a time, so how do we solve the problem, this could be easily solved by creating a different boot configuration with hypervisorlaunchtype status OFF, this shuts off Windows Hyper-V technology and thus enables 3^rd party like Virtual Box to use the Hypervision.

Disabling “hypervisorlaunchtype” status

1.      Open the command prompt with (Run as Administrator)

2.      Copy the current boot configuration and name it something very relative “Windows 8 (No Hyper-V)”

Some points to note, {current} token resembles your current boot configuration. FYI I had my Hyper-V enabled before following these steps, so I assume you also will have hyper-v enabled on your Windows 8.

Once you copy, it will give back you a Guid, which will be a unique identifier for your boot-configuration.

3.      Now keep a note of the Guid (this will differ on your machine) and perform further step, to disable the Hypervision

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /set {use-your-guid} hypervisorlaunchtype OFF

The above step will disable the Hyper-v for the copied boot configuration.

4.      Re-start your machine and this will ask you to choose which operating system to load

               Choosing the “Windows 8 (No Hyper-V) will again re-start your PC, to ensure that your Windows 8 is booted up with Hyper-V disabled, and this will happen every time you select this option.

               You can switch to Windows 8 (which is Hyper-V enabled) by select the option on another reboot, by doing this on contrary this won’t restart the PC again as in case of Windows 8 (No Hyper-V)

5.      After restart it will as normal as using Windows 8 (with No Hyper-V).

Disclaimer: This is not supported and not a best way to work, indeed an un-supported workaround to enable both Virtual-Box and Hyper-V run side by side. Configure this at your own risk, you are responsible for your actions.

Hope this helps J