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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

While running, yes. On Windows if you enable Hyper-V support, even when you're not using it at the moment, you can't use VirtualBox without reboots and shit.

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This is because Hyper-V is a level 1 hypervisor (similar to Xen) while VirtualBox is a level 2 (similar to QEMU). Hyper-V is always running because the Windows "host" OS is actually running under it's control as well.

> Hyper-V is always running because the Windows "host" OS is actually running under it's control as well.

Wait really? That doesn't seem right, why would they have the host running under part of hyper v when hyper v is optional? This would mean the entire foundation shifts when you enable or disable hyper v

Yeah, that's why the reboot is required, it's like changing kernels on linux. I think they are moving to have it on by default, and eventually they may just make it permanently part of the OS install. Kind of like how they take control of the TPM on install even if you don't setup BitLocker, I imagine they will just have the core hypervisor permanently enabled and then it's up to the user setting what actually uses its features.

Hence the reboots.

This system has resulted in issues in the "host" and with an unresponsive control plane for me the few times I've tried to use it. Compared to no issues with type 2s.

To say nothing of the madness of using it on a laptop with several network adapters when the guest OS only wants to acknowledge one.

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