Why Virtual Box won't give me option to create 64 bits guests?

My host is x64 bits Windows 8.1.

I downloaded the latest Virtual Box (4.3) and I'm trying to create a VM with a 64 bits Ubuntu OS (ubuntu-12.04.3-desktop-amd64).

When I go to New VM wizard, it doesn't give me option to select "Ubuntu (x64)" as I have seen in other people's screenshots, only just "Ubuntu". As a result, the ISO can't boot. I tried in another PC and Virtual Box gives the x64 variants to most listed OS...

Control Panel shows x64 OS, x64 processor. My host laptop is a Sony Vaio VPCZ22UGX/N, Intel® Core™ i7-2640M processor. CPUz shows Vx-t is available on my processor, of course.

Here is what I tried so far:

  • I enabled IO APIC as required in the docs.

  • I have virtualization enabled in the BIOS. It works fine in VMware.

  • Check that Hyper-V is not running or even installed on my Windows. Same for VMware.

  • I also tried running the command:

    VBoxManage modifyvm [vmname] --longmode on

for that VM, but no change.. I think the issue is really that I can't select x64 variant of the Ubuntu OS for that VM. Other people seem to indicate that's a requirement, but I don't get that option for some reason.

I spent a lot of time and can't find what's wrong... Anyone knows what could be missing here?

Thank you very much!!

Eduardo


I ran into the same issue.

Turning off Hyper-v temporarily solved my problem and all 64bit options were available:

I use hyper-v on my laptop. When I know I don't need VMs for the day, I can squeeze a bit more performance out of the machine by turning hyper-v off with:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

and a reboot. To turn it back on:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype on (or auto start)

and reboot.

Source


I had the same issue (compatible hardware, options enabled - no way to create a 64 bit VM), and gave up with VirtualBox and gave VMWare Workstation a try. Fortunately, I had a similar yet explicit error asking me to uninstall Hyper-V. Deactivating it is not enough, you have to remove the component from your system. This post was helpful for me : Uninstalling HyperV from Windows 8

To remove the component simply run this command from and admin cmd (credits to @levi-botelho):

Dism /online /disable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Hyper-V

VT-x/AMD-v cpus are the way to go.

See this post for more detail.

I successfully enabled this capability in my Thinkpad T420.


Because the VT-x setting is typically locked at power on, it is necessary to fully power down the system after changing any VT-x options in the firmware (BIOS/EFI). A simple reboot is not sufficient!

It may be related only for Intel processors


I had a similar issue. Post VT-x in your BIOS and restart, can you try reinstalling VirtualBox? For some reason, the 64-bit option doesn't show up unless you reinstall VirtualBox. I did that and it solved the issue for me.