Enabling Discrete Device Assignment on Windows 10

Question

Enabling Discrete Device Assignment on Windows 10

Zsolt Lázár 1

Hello,

I've been experimenting with different versions of Windows 10, and I am almost ready to buy a license, but unfortunately there is one major problem that is a showstopper for me. For my work, I need to be able to pass through physical devices to a linux-based HyperV virtual machine. Microsoft calls this feature DDA or Discrete Device Assignment, and as far as I can tell it is only supported on Server editions of Windows. Unfortunately it is not viable for me to use Server as my main workstation OS. Dual-booting with it is also not an option.

Is there any way to somehow enable this feature on Windows 10 with some sort of registry/group policy hack? Or perhaps is it possible to move the feature from a Server installation over to a Win10 installation so I can use it?

My master goal is to pass through a PCI device (a USB3.1 controller/root hub) to a linux-based virtual machine. GPU passthrough would certainly be useful in the future, but right now it's not as important as the root hub.

DDA seems like a mature technology at this point, so I think it should be included in Pro, or at least in Enterprise/Pro for Workstation. Linux can already to this out of the box and it's a free operating system.

Currently this is the only thing that's holding me back from getting a proper license for Windows 10, and I would really appreciate it if someone form the Server or HyperV teams could point me in the right direction and show me how I can enable the feature.

Thanks in advance

JiayaoZhu 3,926 Reputation points

2021-03-10T06:52:29.19+00:00

Hi,

I would like to check if the reply could be of help? If yes, please help accept answer, so that others meet a similar issue can find useful information quickly. If you have any other concerns or questions, please feel free to feedback.

Best Regards,
Joann
JiayaoZhu 3,926 Reputation points

2021-03-15T08:31:07.067+00:00

Hi,

We haven't heard from you for a few days. I hope you have solved your issue and my tips are useful to you. If yes, please help accept answer, so that others meet a similar issue can find useful information quickly. If you have any other concerns or questions, please feel free to feedback.

Best Regards,
Joann

2 answers

Your answer

JiayaoZhu 3,926 Reputation points

2021-03-10T06:52:29.19+00:00

Hi,

I would like to check if the reply could be of help? If yes, please help accept answer, so that others meet a similar issue can find useful information quickly. If you have any other concerns or questions, please feel free to feedback.

Best Regards,
Joann
JiayaoZhu 3,926 Reputation points

2021-03-15T08:31:07.067+00:00

Hi,

We haven't heard from you for a few days. I hope you have solved your issue and my tips are useful to you. If yes, please help accept answer, so that others meet a similar issue can find useful information quickly. If you have any other concerns or questions, please feel free to feedback.

Best Regards,
Joann

Answer 1

JiayaoZhu 3,926

Hi,

As I understand you may want to know whether you could use win10 to configure DDA so that you could pass through your PCIe to your linux-based VM.

According to the article, it only supports Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016, Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019, Windows Server 2019.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/plan/plan-for-deploying-devices-using-discrete-device-assignment

And after research, it seems there's no official method to bypass DDA for Windows 10, so it's not recommended to use third-party method to configure DDA for Windows 10 host in case you meet any unexpected issue. Thanks for your understanding!

Thank you for your time! If you have any other concerns or questions, please feel free to feedback!

Best regards
Joann

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Zsolt Lázár 1 Reputation point

2021-03-10T11:24:24.527+00:00

Hello,

I am aware that it's only officially supported on Server, I am asking for this feature to be made available in Windows 10.

Is there perhaps an unofficial method to bypass DDA? As far as I can understand, it is there, but it's locked, which is quite annoying.

Again, I would buy a win10 license if there was a way to do this.

Thanks,
Zsolt
JiayaoZhu 3,926 Reputation points

2021-03-11T06:11:41.357+00:00

Hi,

Thank you for your reply!

I am afraid we may only be able to offer you the official versions that support configuring DDA. In this sense, we strongly recommend you to report this issue to Microsoft directly with the Feedback Hub app. The Feedback Hub app lets you tell Microsoft about any problems you run in to while using Windows 10. For more information to get in touch with us, click here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/send-feedback-to-microsoft-with-the-feedback-hub-app-f59187f8-8739-22d6-ba93-f66612949332

Improving the quality of the products and services is a never-ending process for Microsoft. Thanks again for choosing us!

And I would appreciate it if you could click "Accept Answer" to let others who share the similar with yours to grab this information quickly.

If you have any other concerns, please feel free to feedback!

Best wishes
Joann Zhu

Answer 2

essjae 466

I don't know about getting to to work in Linux VMs, but Windows VMs should work.
Here's info on getting a GPU passed through:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/jym8xz/gpu_partitioning_is_finally_possible_in_hyperv/

Zsolt Lázár 1 Reputation point

2021-03-08T20:00:24.367+00:00

That post seems to describe GPU partitioning, not DDA. For me, the most important thing to pass through is a USB root hub (a PCIe device), which is still impossible.