Hyper-V: The Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service must be running

Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012

This topic is intended to address a specific issue identified by a Best Practices Analyzer scan. You should apply the information in this topic only to computers that have had the Hyper-V Best Practices Analyzer run against them and are experiencing the issue addressed by this topic. For more information about best practices and scans, see Best Practices Analyzer.

Operating System

Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2008 R2

Product/Feature

Hyper-V

Severity

Error

Category

Prerequisites

Issue

The service required to manage virtual machines is not running.

Impact

No virtual machine management operations can be performed.

Virtual machines that are running will continue to run. However, you will be unable to manage the virtualization environment, including your virtual machines, while the service is stopped.

Resolution

Use the Services snap-in or sc config command-line tool to reconfigure the service to start automatically.

By default, membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To reconfigure the service to start automatically using the Windows interface

  1. Open the Services snap-in. (Click Start, click in the Start Search box, type services.msc, and then press ENTER.)

  2. In the details pane, right-click Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management, and then click Properties.

  3. On the General tab, in Startup type, click Automatic.

  4. To start the service, click Start.

To reconfigure the service to start automatically using the command line

  1. Open Command Prompt.

  2. To reconfigure the service, type:

    sc config vmms start=auto
    
  3. To start the service, type:

    sc start vmms
    

If the service is already configured to start automatically and you just need to restart the service, you can do so from Hyper-V Manager.

To restart the service from Hyper-V Manager

  1. Open Hyper-V Manager. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Hyper-V Manager.

  2. In the navigation pane, click the name of the server if it is not already selected.

  3. In the Actions pane, click Start Service.