Enable or disable Nested Virtualization for VMs in Hyper-V

Nested Virtualization is supported both Azure and on-premises with the following prerequisites;

Intel processor with VT-x and EPT technology

• The Hyper-V host must be Windows Server 2016/Windows 10 or greater
• VM configuration version 8.0 or greater

AMD EPYC/Ryzen processor or later

• The Hyper-V host must be Windows Server 2022/Windows 11 or greater
• VM configuration version 10.0 or greater

For both configurations, the guest can be any Windows-supported guest operating system. Keep in mind that newer Windows operating systems may support enlightenments that improve performance.

To enable Nested Virtualization for VMs in Hyper-V, do the following:

• Create a virtual machine using the prerequisites specified above.
• While the virtual machine is in the OFF state, on the physical Hyper-V Windows host, open PowerShell in elevated mode.
• In the PowerShell console, run the command below to enable nested virtualization for the virtual machine. Substitute the <VMName> place holder with the actual VM name for the VM you created earlier.

Set-VMProcessor -VMName <VMName> -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

• Once the command executes, you can exit PowerShell console.
• Next, start the virtual machine.
• After the VM starts, install Hyper-V within the virtual machine, just like you would for a physical machine.

Disable Nested Virtualization

You can disable nested virtualization for a stopped virtual machine. To disable Nested Virtualization for VMs in Hyper-V, do the following:

• Open PowerShell in elevated mode on the physical Hyper-V Windows host.
• In the PowerShell console, run the command below:

Set-VMProcessor -VMName <VMName> -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $false

• Exit PowerShell once the command executes.