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Windows 10 shows these three separate features that seem to be the same thing or related.

  • Hyper-V (note that in latest Windows 10 version this has disappeared from the "Windows Features" checklist depicted bellow); it only shows in the services list.
  • Virtual Machine Platform
  • Windows Hypervisor Platform

What does each setting do exactly, and how do they correlate?

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Peter
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Abhishek Kumar
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    This question is a duplicate of [this](https://superuser.com/questions/1556521/virtual-machine-platform-in-win-10-2004-is-hyper-v/1619173#1619173) question – Ramhound Jan 20 '21 at 12:45

1 Answers1

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How do they correlate?

They are separate independent features and do not directly correlate with one another.

What does each setting do exactly?

  • Hyper-V is Microsoft's Hypervisor.

  • Virtual Machine Platform - "Enables platform support for virtual machines" and is required for WSL2. Virtual Machine Platform can be used to create MSIX Application packages for an App-V or MSI.

  • Windows Hypervisor Platform - "Enables virtualization software to run on the Windows hypervisor" and at one time was required for Docker on Windows. The Hypervisor platform is an API that third-party developers can use in order to use Hyper-V. Oracle VirtualBox, Docker, and QEMU are examples of these projects.

The Windows Hypervisor Platform adds an extended user-mode API for third-party virtualization stacks and applications to create and manage partitions at the hypervisor level, configure memory mappings for the partition, and create and control the execution of virtual processors.

Sources:

Ramhound
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  • I'm running Docker on Windows and do not have the `Windows Hypervisor Platform` enabled. The documentation https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install/ says it requires the Hyper-V feature. – Valuator Jan 28 '21 at 15:17
  • Virtual Machine Platform - Enables platform support for virtual machines" and is required for WSL2. The preceding statement is not true as at the date of this comment - I have WSL2 running with Ubuntu, yet VMP is checked off (clearly NOT required for WSL2) – joedotnot Apr 21 '21 at 16:01
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    @joedotnot - [Before installing WSL 2, you must enable the **Virtual Machine Platform** optional feature. Your machine will require virtualization capabilities to use this feature.](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10). If the Microsoft documentation is incorrect, I would make Microsoft aware, once it's been changed I will update my question. You can report the incorrect documentation on that page [here](https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/WSL/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%229d121625-e741-6d20-f3de-201a939290b8%22&in=body). I have my doubts the MS instructions are incorrect – Ramhound Apr 21 '21 at 17:33
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    @saulius2 - WSL2 does not require Hyper-V since WSL2 can be installed on Home editions of Windows 10 and Windows 11, and Home cannot install Hyper-V. If you have a question, you should ask it instead of submitting comments under this answer to clarify your understanding of a topic – Ramhound Jun 04 '23 at 16:22
  • Thanks for pointing that out. I only comment because I still tend to disagree with your statements. No offence :). Wow, have you deleted my comments? Cannot see them anymore... – saulius2 Jun 04 '23 at 17:59
  • @saulius2 - I reported your commentary as "no longer necessary" but I was not the one who deleted them. If you find my answer unhelpful, you should downvote it and provide feedback on how to improve it. If you disagree that Hyper-V is required for WSL2, you should prove a link by Microsoft, proving that it is required. – Ramhound Jun 04 '23 at 18:25