VirtualBox fails to start with VERR_NEM_VM_CREATE_FAILED

  1. Open the "Turn Windows features on or off" settings (type optionalfeatures in the start menu or Win + R).
  2. Untick "Windows Sandbox" and "Hyper-V" .
  3. Restart windows twice.

This is a new feature in Windows 10 v1903 that uses Hyper-V on the backend (even if it's not enabled in Windows Features), which makes this feature not compatible with VirtualBox.

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According to this VirtualBox forum post, there are several features which might use Microsoft Hyper-V, which is not compatible with VirtualBox:

Look in the "Control Panel" » "Programs and Features" » "Turn Windows features on or off", and make sure that the none of the following are active:
  • Application Guard
  • Credential Guard
  • Device Guard
  • <any> * Guard
  • Containers
  • Hyper-V
  • Virtual Machine Platform
  • Windows Hypervisor Platform
  • Windows Sandbox
  • Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

If that doesn't work, enter the following command:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

followed by a cold boot, i.e. shut down the computer, pull the power plug for 10 seconds, reboot.

For me, just disabling "Virtual Machine Platform" and restarting TWICE made it work.

WSL 1 will still work. I'm not so sure about WSL 2, which is currently available in the Windows Insider Program.


Finally solved the issue.

  1. Turn off Hyper-v
  2. Turn off Windows sandbox

by navigating to "Turn windows features on or off".

Restart the machine twice and then try to Start vm in virtualbox.