VT-x is Disabled in the BIOS, How to Enable Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x) and AMD-V in BIOS?

For some reasons, if you find that vt-x is disabled in the bios, this guide will be showing you how to enable on Intel and AMD based computers.  The hardware virtualization technology extensions should be enabled in motherboard BIOS in order to run recent Operating Systems and some of the virtualization applications. Specifically, Windows 10, and 8.1 require VT-x/AMD-V enabled processors to accelerate the usage of desktop virtualization software like VMware, VirtualBox, and Hyper-V. Even to install these latest Windows Operating Systems as the virtual machine, VT should be enabled on the host computer. Your PC processor and motherboard should support this feature, if they don’t, you can’t do anything to get this feature because it’s a built-in hardware feature. This simple guide explains how to enable Intel Virtualization Technology (vt,vt-x) for Intel processors and AMD-V for AMD processors.

Modifying BIOS settings could be tricky and it is different for each type of motherboards and BIOS. But you must enable it if it’s really required to install and run specific OS or applications.  Even though it is easy to do, I highly recommend checking the manual or online guide of your motherboard vendor.

All the latest processors and motherboards support virtualization technology (vt-x/AMD-v). If you have an old PC, double check the processor model for this feature. Before play around in BIOS, use the appropriate tools to detect the current VT-X status in OS level. If it’s already enabled (detected by these tools), then no changes required in BIOS.

VT-x is Disabled in the BIOS, Where to Find Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-X) in BIOS?

It can be found under ‘Advanced Chipset settings’ in AWARD BIOS. Normally these vt-x/AMD-v extension settings will be available in advanced settings on most of the motherboards.

After you have changed the settings to disable or enable, it’s recommended to shut down the computer for minimum 10 seconds and restart it (Cold Restart) to take effect. Latest motherboards automatically detect these type of changes and do the cold restart. Whenever I change VT setting in my motherboard, it delays the restart automatically.

How to Confirm Virtualization Technology (vt-x/AMD-v) is Enabled or Disabled?

1) If your processor is made by Intel, use this free utility to see the result which operating system is sensing.

Download Intel virtualization technology detection tool here.

Once the utility is installed in Windows 10 or Windows 7/8.1 computer, you can use and identify the status as shown below. You can use this tool to enable VT-x on Windows 10 BIOS.

2) To check the status of AMD-V, AMD users can download AMD-V detection utility here.

3) There is a tool available from Microsoft which will work on both Intel and AMD processor Windows OS computers.

Download Microsoft Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool from the official site here.

This tool doesn’t work on Windows 8, obviously, if you are using Windows 8, then vt-x/AMD-v is already enabled on the same PC, that’s why you were able to install Windows 8 or Windows 10 on it.

Installation is not required here, execute the EXE file and the following result will appear.

One of these above tools will help you to identify vt-x/AMD-v support on your laptop or desktop computer.

With this article, if VT-x is disabled in the BIOS, you should locate the place to enable hardware VT-x. If you use Hyper-v hypervisor on your desktop computer, make sure Intel VT-x or AMD-V is enabled.  If you do not see this option in your motherboard, you must check the motherboard manual and specifications to identify whether the motherboard supports virtualization technology.  Some of the old motherboards on desktop or laptop do not offer this feature.