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Table of Contents
VirtualBox Windows 10 / 11 performance issues
Intro
It's possible to have severe performance issues using VirtualBox on Windows. This is usually caused by Microsoft forcing their own Hyper-v hypervisor to startup with Windows in the background. This blocks direct access to intel's and AMD's virtualization on the CPU's. VirtualBox is therefore forced to fallback to Hyper-V, running all VM's as nested VM's on top of it.
This issue is indicated with a green turtle icon in the bottom taskbar of a started VirtualBox VM (as seen in the example image).
Solution 1:
I would highly recommend using a Linux OS for virtualization when possible! One of my preferences is Proxmox, which is free to use and supports a wide range of advanced features.
Solution 2:
1) Disable the Microsoft Hypervisor:
- Type:
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
2) Disable Device guard:
On some Windows hosts with an EFI BIOS, DeviceGuard or CredentialGuard may be active by default, and interferes with OS level virtualization apps in the same way that Hyper-v does. These features also need to be disabled.
On Pro versions of Windows you can do this using gpedit.msc
- Type:
set Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Guard > Turn on Virtualization Based Security to Disabled.
CredentialGuard is a subset of DeviceGuard, so disabling the former should be enough. If you cannot use gpedit for some reason then the equivalent registry hack is to find the key
- Type:
HKLM|SYSTEM|CurrentControlSet|Control|DeviceGuard|EnableVirtualizationBasedSecurity|Enabled and set it to 0.
3) Disable core isolation:
Core isolation [includes] security features available on your device that use virtualization-based security. This is why they can interfere with VirtualBox and other virtualization tools. Disable them as follow:
- Type:
On Win10 hosts, check Settings -> Device Security > Core Isolation Details and make sure all settings in this panel are turned off.
4) Windows rituals:
Reboot your system for the new configuration to take affect!


