Hyper-V is a Microsoft-owned Windows Hypervisor platform (Type-1) that allows the users to run virtual machines with high performance. However, if you are using Windows 10 Home Edition, then you will not have the “Hyper-V” option in the “Turns Windows feature on or off” to run virtual computers because it is available only for Windows 10 Professional, Education, and Enterprise Editions (know the difference). However, still, there is a way to easily download, install and enable the Hyper-V feature on Windows 10 Home using the command line.
- How To Install Windows 10 Free 2020
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Requirements:
Insert the drive into the PC or laptop onto which you want to install Windows 10. Then turn on the computer and it should boot from the flash drive. If not, enter the BIOS and ensure the computer is set to boot from the USB drive (using the arrow keys to put it in the first place in the boot sequence). Back when Windows 10 was first released, Microsoft allowed users of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Microsoft officially ended the free upgrade offer in December 2017.
- Windows 10 Home OS
- Administrator access
- Virtualization must be enabled in BIOS to create VMs
- Active Internet connection
Although, in modern systems Virtualization is enabled in BIOS by default, however, to confirm it, just right-click on Taskbar and select Task manager ⇒ Performance and find whether it is on or off.
Well, if you don’t want to use Hyper-V then try out some other best third-party Virtual machine creator software programs.
Steps to Activate Hyper-v Feature on Windows 10 Home
Here are the simple steps that we can follow to download and install Hypervisor using a Command-line script.
1. Script to download Hyper v for Windows 10 home
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There is a code available on Github that allows users to automate the process of downloading and enabling the Hyper-V feature. Here is that
pushd '%~dp0' dir /b %SystemRoot%servicingPackages*Hyper-V*.mum >hyper-v.txt for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . hyper-v.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:'%SystemRoot%servicingPackages%%i' del hyper-v.txt Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Hyper-V -All /LimitAccess /ALL pause
What we have to do is – Right-click on the Desktop and select Text Document. A new file will be created, now open it and paste the above code in that. After that rename that file to Hyper-V Enabler.bat
Alternative- However, to make all this easy for you, we already have created this bat file that you can download directly using this link.
2. Run Hyper-V Enabler Batch file
Once you downloaded or created a Batch file with the given code by yourself on your Desktop. Right-click on that and select “Run as Administrator“.
3. Feature installation will start
As we run the Batch file, it will open a Command prompt to run the code saved in it. Make sure you have an active internet connection on your system to download files required to install and activate Hyper-V on Windows 10 Home. This will take some time depending upon your network speed.
4. Restart your Windows 10 System
Once the installation is complete, the Hyper-v will automatically get enabled on your system. Thus, to make changes into effect, the system will ask you to restart it. Simply type Y on your command terminal and press the Enter key.
5. Run Hyper-V Manager on Windows 10 home
Let’s check whether this Microsoft Windows Hypervisor feature is on our system or not. For that, in the search box type- Turn Windows features on or off, as its icon appears, click to open it.
There scroll and find -Hyper-V and make sure all its tools are checked as shown in the above screenshot, if not already, and then hit the OK button.
Now, we know this free Microsoft virtualization software is on our system, it’s time to run it and start creating virtual machines.
Go to Windows 10 Search box again or simply press the Win key on your keyboard and this time type- Hyper-V, click on its icon when appears.
Alternatively, we can use a command to run Hypervisor- open CMD or the RUN box (shortcut key- Win key + R) and type –
virtmgmt.msc
6. Create a Virtual Machine
- To create a virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager, right-click on the connected server and select the New option.
- Click on the Next button and give some name to your virtual machine. For example Ubuntu.
- Choose the Generation for your Virtual machine. If the operating system you want to install supports 32-bit or 64-bit and requires legacy BIOS features then go for Generation 1. Whereas for the latest features and only 64-bit with UEFI boot supported OS users can go for Generation 2. However, you can leave the default selection as it is if you are not sure about this.
- Assign the amount of RAM or Memory you want to use.
- Configure Network. For that select the Default Switch from the Drop-down box. If you don’t have then first create one.
- Select the Size of Virtual Disk.
- Assign ISO file of the OS you want to install.
To get a step by step guide you can see our article-How to use hyper-v to install Linux Virtual machine on Windows 10
7. Uninstall or Disable Hyper-V feature on Windows 10 Home
Hyper-V is not compatible completely with other Type- 2 virtualizers, even though the latest version of Vmware and Virtualbox can run along with it, there will be a huge performance issue. Thus, if you are planning to use Vmware player or Virtualbox on Windows 10 Home, then first, Deactivate the Hyper-V.
To uninstall this feature, we need to uncheck it from the “Turns Windows features on or off” section. To open it you can either find it from the Search box of Windows 10 or simply press Win Key + R to open the RUN box and type-
optionalfeatures.exe
Now uncheck the box given for Hyper-v.
7.1 Command line to disable windows virtualization feature (optional)
If you want then can use a very straight forward method that is either using command prompt or PowerShell command line-
On Powershell run this
Whereas on Command prompt, use this one-
7.2 Restart your system
To make sure the hypervisor feature gets disabled completely, now restart your system. This uninstalls it completely.
7.3- In case you want to enable it again (optional)
In the future if you want to enable Microsoft Hypervisor again then you don’t need to run the Batch file this time, just got Windows Features and select it. Or use the command line-
Powershell
CMD
Also See-Hyper-V vs VirtualBox: A basic comparison
Closing thoughts
Well, this was the quick way to use the Microsoft Windows hypervisor on Windows 10 Home edition. In case you are facing any problem while enabling it, let’s know, the comment section is all yours…
-->Here's how to create a bootable Windows installation USB drive starting with a Windows .iso file or a Windows Setup DVD.
Tip
If you're looking for an easy way to create a bootable USB Windows installation drive, use the media creation tool.
What you need
- Windows 10 install .iso or DVD
- USB flash drive with at least 5GB free space. This drive will be formatted, so make sure it doesn't have any important files on it.
- Technician PC - Windows PC that you'll use to format the USB flash drive
- Destination PC - A PC that you'll install Windows on
Step 1 - Format the drive and set the primary partition as active
- Connect the USB flash drive to your technician PC.
- Open Disk Management: Right-click on Start and choose Disk Management.
- Format the partition: Right-click the USB drive partition and choose Format. Select the FAT32 file system to be able to boot either BIOS-based or UEFI-based PCs.
- Set the partition as active: Right-click the USB drive partition and click Mark Partition as Active.NoteIf Mark Partition as Active isn't available, you can instead use diskpart to select the partition and mark it active.
Step 2 - Copy Windows Setup to the USB flash drive
- Use File Explorer to copy and paste the entire contents of the Windows product DVD or ISO to the USB flash drive.
- Optional: add an unattend file to automate the installation process. For more information, see Automate Windows Setup.
Step 3 - Install Windows to the new PC
- Connect the USB flash drive to a new PC.
- Turn on the PC and press the key that opens the boot-device selection menu for the computer, such as the Esc/F10/F12 keys. Select the option that boots the PC from the USB flash drive.Windows Setup starts. Follow the instructions to install Windows.
- Remove the USB flash drive.
If your Windows image is larger than 4GB
Windows USB install drives are formatted as FAT32, which has a 4GB filesize limit. If your image is larger than the filesize limit:
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- Copy everything except the Windows image file (sourcesinstall.wim) to the USB drive (either drag and drop, or use this command, where D: is the mounted ISO and E: is the USB flash drive.)
- Split the Windows image file into smaller files, and put the smaller files onto the USB drive:Note, Windows Setup automatically installs from this file, so long as you name it install.swm.