Possible to turn off Hyper-V in Google Compute machine?

Issue

I am looking for some help on this. I have a google compute Windows Server 2016 machine. I am trying to use it to run Android Studio and Android Virtual Devices (AVD). AVD requires that I turn off Hyper-V. The problem is that even after turning off Hyper-V (using command prompt in admin mode, bcdedit) and restarting, the AVD manager shows hyper-v is still on.

I wanted to make sure if is is at all possibel to turn off hyper-v in Google Compute machine? commands I have used: bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunch off

Solution

My guess is that the command is misleading you. In a GCE VM, the Intel CPU extensions that provide hardware assistance for hypervisors (specifically for GCE's hypervisor) are already on and in use. These are often called "VT-x". Android Virtual Devices work by running a hypervisor of their own, but since GCE is using the VT-x from the processor, and we do not currently provide them to the guest to use, you are not practically able to "nest" the Android hypervisor inside a GCE guest. Another similar use case that hits this limitation is Packer-based builds, as well as trying to run other hypervisors inside GCE VMs.

I believe the message you're seeing about "disable Hyper-V" is misleading you, and the real problem is that GCE VMs do not have nested hypervisor support as of this writing (I know this part is true, I am a Product Manager for GCE).

Some sites including this page suggests that the workaround is to run Microsoft's Android emulator. Seems worth a try, although if that emulator also needs hypervisor acceleration, it may not work either.

Answered By - Paul R. Nash