VirtualBox fails to start with VERR_NEM_VM_CREATE_FAILED

Question

Immediately after starting a VM in VirtualBox, I receive a error box that contains the following error message:

Call to WHvSetupPartition failed: ERROR_SUCCESS (Last=0xc000000d/87) (VERR_NEM_VM_CREATE_FAILED).

I am running Windows 10 Professional, Version 1903 and have confirmed that Hyper-V is not enabled.

I got the same problem and none of the solutions from here doesn't work for me. Could you please take a look on my question - https://superuser.com/questions/1508514/verr-nem-vm-create-failed-on-launching-macos-in-virtualbox-in-win-10-1903 — KozhevnikovDmitry, Dec 09 '19 at 07:17
I don't have enough rep on this SE site to post this as an answer (perhaps someone else would though?), but I just managed to get my VMs to launch in VBox 6.2 on a Win10 Pro 1903 host with both "Hyper-V" and "Windows Hypervisor Platform" features installed: I just needed to update my VBox global config with `VBoxManage setextradata global "VBoxInternal/NEM/UseRing0Runloop" 0`. See [this VBox forum post](https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=90853&sid=f20b0f7f51e462005f9b3be80a567617&start=120#p453078) for details. — , Jan 29 '20 at 11:10
Minor correction to my previous comment (too late to edit it now): I meant in VirtualBox 6**.1**.2.. — , Jan 29 '20 at 11:39
@ZaLiTHkA you could ask a new question and tick the "Answer your own question" box — aman207, Jan 29 '20 at 14:26
I received this very same error message. This happened even after unticking "Hyper-V" and "Windows sandbox" from "Windows features". However, I could finally start my VM after unticking "Containers", "Virtual Machine Platform" and "Windows Process Activation Service", and restarting Windows twice. — Anselmo GPP, Nov 04 '21 at 13:23

score 48 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 11 '20 at 21:28

48

Open the "Turn Windows features on or off" settings (type optionalfeatures in the start menu or Win + R).
Untick "Windows Sandbox" and "Hyper-V" .
Restart windows twice.

This is a new feature in Windows 10 v1903 that uses Hyper-V on the backend (even if it's not enabled in Windows Features), which makes this feature not compatible with VirtualBox.

edited Dec 11 '20 at 21:28

IRSHAD

103
3

answered May 29 '19 at 23:31

aman207

1,999
3
16
21

4

I am also facing this same issue. In my machine both hyper-v and sandbox not enabled (both are untick). Any other suggestions? – PSR May 30 '19 at 08:03
4

Two reboots are needed after disabling Windows Sandbox – Jonathan Rioux Jul 13 '19 at 02:13
4

In my case was unchecking "Windows Hypervisor Platform" – user63227 Jul 23 '19 at 23:10
7

The "Windows Sandbox" can't appear for some people that are not using Windows 10 on english language (my case, I'm using Brazilian Portuguese). On that case, you can use the command line to disable it: `Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName "Containers-DisposableClientVM" -Online` – Dherik Sep 13 '19 at 17:44
i also had to disable "Docker for windows"m seems to re-enable Hyper-V – JPelletier Nov 11 '19 at 15:10
1

It seems that Microsoft is re-enabling Hyper-V even if we disable it with those feature updates. (Hyper-V was re-enabled on my Windows 10 PC after upgrading to 1903 without telling me...) – na-no. Dec 01 '19 at 09:40
I got the same problem and solutions from here doesn't work for me. Could you please take a look on my question - https://superuser.com/questions/1508514/verr-nem-vm-create-failed-on-launching-macos-in-virtualbox-in-win-10-1903 – KozhevnikovDmitry Dec 09 '19 at 07:14
5

I had to untick "Virtual Machine Platform" & reboot twice. – Nearoo Jan 27 '20 at 13:30
Just rebooting twice might be a good idea to try, the only common denominator in all solutions here is the reboot twice – Nearoo Jan 27 '20 at 13:32
Had to reboot twice to get this working (unchecked both Hyper-V and sandbox). – Joules Feb 12 '20 at 20:27
This didn't help. I just grabbed a newer version of VirtualBox 6.1.18 and it worked fine. – Kulbir Saini Feb 28 '21 at 09:17
Really annoying that this affects VirtualBox! Sandbox is useful as well, but now I have to turn it off in order to get my VBs running. :-( – Bernd Nov 14 '21 at 10:51

score 33 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 11 '19 at 23:59

33

According to this VirtualBox forum post, there are several features which might use Microsoft Hyper-V, which is not compatible with VirtualBox:

Look in the "Control Panel" » "Programs and Features" » "Turn Windows features on or off", and make sure that the none of the following are active:

Application Guard

Credential Guard

Device Guard

<any> * Guard

Containers

Hyper-V

Virtual Machine Platform

Windows Hypervisor Platform

Windows Sandbox

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

If that doesn't work, enter the following command:
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
followed by a cold boot, i.e. shut down the computer, pull the power plug for 10 seconds, reboot.

For me, just disabling "Virtual Machine Platform" and restarting TWICE made it work.

WSL 1 will still work. I'm not so sure about WSL 2, which is currently available in the Windows Insider Program.

edited Dec 11 '19 at 23:59

G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'

7,678
22
41
87

answered Nov 26 '19 at 13:19

Thomas

500
1
5
7

4

I can confirm that "Virtual Machine Platform" feature is required for WSL 2 Also mentioned here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-install – Boris Brdarić Jan 15 '20 at 00:42
In my case, I had to uninstall Windows Defender Application Guard and reboot. Other solutions did not work. – claytoncarney Mar 07 '20 at 19:22
Yep, I've just enabled "Virtual Machine Platform" to try WSL2 and VirtualBox broke. Disabling the component and restarting the notebook twice brought VirtualBox back to life again. – Alex Che May 05 '20 at 12:54
Virtual Machine Platform is he one that got me :) – Pepe Code May 28 '21 at 18:39

score 30 · Answer 3 · answered May 30 '19 at 08:17

30

Finally solved the issue.

Turn off Hyper-v
Turn off Windows sandbox

by navigating to "Turn windows features on or off".

Restart the machine twice and then try to Start vm in virtualbox.

answered May 30 '19 at 08:17

PSR

425
3
5

9

Restart twice EVEN if Windows sandbox was already off and only Hyper-v was turned off did the trick! – Frithjof Schaefer Sep 12 '19 at 15:05
1

Also turn off "Containers" – nimrodm Feb 19 '20 at 14:14
Double reboots helped me! – Feanor Apr 02 '20 at 09:19
worked for me too! thank you, life saver! – petrosmm Sep 18 '20 at 19:38

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 24 '19 at 18:29

11

In my case, turning Windows Sandbox and Hyper-V off and restarting my PC dozens of times didn't work. I even tried turning the features back on, then back off, then restarting another dozen times.

What did work, was disabling Memory integrity from Core isolation in Windows Security, possibly because it uses virtualization features, as do Hyper-V and the Windows Sandbox.

Now I can finally start my VMs again.

answered Sep 24 '19 at 18:29

Nolonar

2,819
3
20
26

this worked for me – dipu Jan 11 '20 at 07:56
This also worked for me. Thanks! – Makotosan Jan 17 '20 at 04:55
I had this exact same problem, on a fresh windows 10 install, 21H1, with VirtualBox 6.0.4. The common fix of turning off windows features did not work. But this solution worked for me immediately. Thank you. – Smoggie Tom Jan 26 '22 at 16:03
After trying the solution given by @aman207, THIS is what worked for me. I'm using VBox 6.0.14 running on Win10 pro compilation 19042 version 20H2 – Broken_Window Jun 20 '22 at 16:51

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 02 '20 at 09:28

7

I've gone through that same problem too and it was caused due to having an older version on my machine at that given time (version 6.0.22).

In order to solve it, I've gone to Virtual Box's download page, downloaded the version 6.1.16 for Windows hosts and installed this newer version

Then, as you can see in the next images, that error is gone

answered Nov 02 '20 at 09:28

Tiago Martins Peres

1,327
2
17
33

1

Surprisingly, this was exactly the solution for me - nothing else helped until I updated from 6.1.2 to 6.1.32 . I can't find the words to explain how I feel about the quality of error messages. – Alexander Gonchiy Mar 14 '22 at 22:52

Jon · Answer 6 · 2019-12-11T22:54:22.230

Hyper-V needs to be disabled but not uninstalled. I wanted to maintain Hyper-V functions some of the time and have the option to reboot into windows with Hyper-V disabled.

I ran the following in an administrator powershell prompt:

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Windows 10 no Hyper-V"

The entry was successfully copied to {95524711-fa90-11e9-b0c8-927c2d2c6eb6}.

Copy the GUID into the next command:

bcdedit /set "{95524711-fa90-11e9-b0c8-927c2d2c6eb6}" hypervisorlaunchtype off

The operation completed successfully.

Click restart while holding the shift button And keep holding shift

Select "Other Operating Systems" and your "No Hyper-V" option is in there.

If you want to change the default mode (either with hyper-v enabled or disabled), run msconfig and change the default on the boot tab.

Thanks to Scott Hanselman for inspiring this post.

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 02 '21 at 18:06

3

You don't need to disable Containers! Here's how to do it based on this article

VBoxManage setextradata "<VM Name>" "VBoxInternal/NEM/UseRing0Runloop" 0

answered Nov 02 '21 at 18:06

Reza Sanaie

211
2
3

While this helped with creation of the VM, I ran into the next problem later ("Attempting fall back to NEM")... – Eike Nov 11 '21 at 11:34

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 16 '22 at 12:59

When Docker Desktop is running

When you currently do not need any docker container, that is running on your system, it is sufficient to close docker desktop by right clicking the icon in the right on your task bar:

Then select "Quit Docker Desktop" and the VM is supposed to run again. You can even restart Docker Desktop after that and relaunch your containers without breaking either the VM or containers.

(For sure not every functionality is guaranteed, but it's worth a test.)

Newer versions of Virtual Box are probably better in doing so (my post was created with VirtualBox 6.1)

VirtualBox fails to start with VERR_NEM_VM_CREATE_FAILED

8 Answers8

Linked