How to Enable Hardware Virtualization on Surface 3?

[thom0707]

It appears that the Intel Atom x7-z8700 in the Surface Pro 3 supports hardware virtualization. However, it also appears to be disabled by default in the firmware. While I would not typically run a VM on this machine, it would be nice to occasionally do Windows Phone development and run the application in an emulator, which would require Hyper-V (and thus a Windows 8.1 Pro upgrade) and hardware virtualization to be enabled.

There does not appear to be any option to enable this in the UEFI menu. Any thoughts on how to do this?

 

[dudejoe]

I think it's more of the Hardware supports it, but Windows 8.1 normal doesn't.

 

[azcruz]

Windows 8 had support for Hyper V from the start. If your CPU don't support it, you won't get it.

 

[Hoekie]

AFAIK it needs an option in BIOS to enable VT.

 

[thom0707]

Hoekie, I believe you are correct. I was discussing this with a friend with a Surface Pro 3. It doesn't appear to be an option in the Pro 3's BIOS/UEFI settings either, but I know Hyper-V works on that system. I am wondering if that option is set to ON by default on the Pro 3 -- otherwise, how are people running Hyper-V on that system? I have always had to manually enable hardware virtualization on every other PC I have ever owned.

Perhaps someone with a new Surface Pro 3 can run System Information and see if "Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware" is set to "Yes" out-of-the-box?

 

[realwarder]

Could be to push people away from using it for VM's because of power. Windows runs a different HAL when Hyper-V is enabled which doesn't permit all the low power modes (connected standby etc.) Or at least never used to.

As Surface 3 is a tablet device the majority of user's focus is battery life and let's face it, an Atom is not going to be that great at running Hyper-V.

Saying all that, it's good if we get to enable things like this when we want, so good luck with your quest.

 

[illegaloperation]

arstechnica:

"The processor even supports the VT-x virtualization extensions, so it could be used to host virtual machines in Hyper-V or VMware. Unfortunately, the Surface 3's firmware turns VT-x off and offers no ability to turn it back on. Microsoft tells us this is something that the company is looking into. While the machine will obviously never be a VM-hosting power house, the ability to fire up, for example, the Windows Phone emulator (which depends on Hyper-V) would have been neat."

 

[seremify]

Thanks for answering my Q I wanted to install AMI DuOS.

 

[OmegaX3]

AMI DuOS works great on the Surface 3, even the 2GB model.
Odd thing is after installing and running AMIDuOS on my surface I got the message about Virtualization but after restarting my surface I have not seen that message so don't know if the virtualization got turned on or the message just stopped bugging me but either way I have no problems running AMIDuOS.

 

[Euell Gibbons]

H/W virtualization support helps, but is not required for AMIDuOS. It just stopped nagging you

 

[DLCPhototography]

AMI DuOS works great on the Surface 3, even the 2GB model.
Odd thing is after installing and running AMIDuOS on my surface I got the message about Virtualization but after restarting my surface I have not seen that message so don't know if the virtualization got turned on or the message just stopped bugging me but either way I have no problems running AMIDuOS.

I have read somewhere that installing AMIDuOS inactivates "connected standby." Can you confirm or refute that?

I'd like to try it, but don't want to lose connected standby.

Thanks.

 

[seremify]

AMI DuOS works great on the Surface 3, even the 2GB model.
Odd thing is after installing and running AMIDuOS on my surface I got the message about Virtualization but after restarting my surface I have not seen that message so don't know if the virtualization got turned on or the message just stopped bugging me but either way I have no problems running AMIDuOS.

I installed the trial version of AMI DuOS last night and it worked great once I set manual DPI to 160 in the config tool. It feels natural to use the touch screen although if I was being critical it does have a slight amount of lag and the reviews online indicate Android emulation will kill battery life.

Re virtualization prompt- I believe there's a tickbox which you may have clicked in one of the popups saying not to remind you about it in the future. I had this come up on mine as well.

 

[seremify]

I have read somewhere that installing AMIDuOS inactivates "connected standby." Can you confirm or refute that?

I'd like to try it, but don't want to lose connected standby.

Thanks.

Silly question as I'm still new to Surface but how would we prove/confirm this? Happy to try.

 

[anon(5327127)]

I think it's more of the Hardware supports it, but Windows 8.1 normal doesn't.

Just... Wow! Where on earth did you learn that? Simply wrong.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Silly question as I'm still new to Surface but how would we prove/confirm this? Happy to try.

Get a Command Prompt (various ways, but Windows Key + R will give you the Run Dialogue Box, then type cmd in that box):

Type

powercfg -A

Hit enter, and it will list the variuos power states currently available and active on the device.

Let me know - thanks!

 

[seremify]

Sorry haven't had a chance to try but will tomorrow.

Saw this video on YouTube -

Skip ahead to around 8:30 and he talks about how he got his surface 3 to enable hardware virtualisation through closing and reopening the app. I haven't tried yet but some of you guys might be interested.

 

[seremify]

Get a Command Prompt (various ways, but Windows Key + R will give you the Run Dialogue Box, then type cmd in that box):

Type

powercfg -A

Hit enter, and it will list the variuos power states currently available and active on the device.

Let me know - thanks!

Been a while since I played with dos but glad to see the old way of adding ">> list.txt" works!

Here's the output:

The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (Connected)
Hibernate
Fast Startup

The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S1)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.

Standby (S2)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.

Standby (S3)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.

Hybrid Sleep
Standby (S3) is not available.

 

[seremify]

Virtualization is enabled on my Surface 3 now! It worked as the guy said- play with the DUOS emulator for a while, quit out, then restart.



At first I got an error (above) that it was unable to load the virtual machine - but a quick Google search led me to find out it was Avast causing issues. After unchecking the hardware assisted virtualization in Troubleshooting settings and restarting again, it worked great! Refer to helpful forum thread explaining that Avast was the cause > http://amiduos.com/support/topic/virtual-machine-error



(FYI I have the 4/128gb model of Surface 3)

 

[DLCPhototography]

Been a while since I played with dos but glad to see the old way of adding ">> list.txt" works!

Here's the output:

The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (Connected)
Hibernate
Fast Startup

The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S1)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.

Standby (S2)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.

Standby (S3)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.

Hybrid Sleep
Standby (S3) is not available.

Thanks for checking this out for me. That output is identical to what I see on mine, so it looks like it doesn't mess anything up there. More reason to possibly give it a try.

 

[trs1961]

I had to turn it off after I was playing around with a VM so I could use the microsoft display adapter, and ran across this...

open a command prompt as admin, I believe both require a reboot as well.

run the command below to turn it off
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

run the command below to turn it on
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto