Virtualization Enable or Disable Automatic Checkpoints for Hyper-V Virtual Machine in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable automatic checkpoints for a Hyper-V virtual machine in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Hyper-V enables running virtualized computer systems on top of a physical host. These virtualized systems can be used and managed just as if they were physical computer systems, however they exist in virtualized and isolated environment. Special software called a hypervisor manages access between the virtual systems and the physical hardware resources. Virtualization enables quick deployment of computer systems, a way to quickly restore systems to a previously known good state, and the ability to migrate systems between physical hosts.

If you enable checkpoints for a Hyper-V virtual machine, you can also enable or disable automatic checkpoints for the virtual machine.

When you enable automatic checkpoints for a virtual machine, Hyper-V creates a checkpoint when the VM starts (if no existing checkpoint exists) and deletes it when the VM shuts down cleanly.

Reference:

You must be signed in as an administrator to enable or disable automatic checkpoints for a Hyper-V virtual machine.

1 Open Hyper-V Manager (virtmgmt.msc).

2 Select the virtual machine (ex: "Windows 11 Home") you want in the middle pane, and click/tap on Settings in the right "Actions" pane. (see screenshot below)


3 Click/tap on Checkpoints in the left pane. (see screenshot below)

4 Check (enable - default) or uncheck (disable) Use automatic checkpoints in the right pane for what you want.

If Enable checkpoints is unchecked, the Use automatic checkpoints setting will be disabled and grayed out.

5 Click/tap on OK.







1 Open Windows Terminal (Admin), and select Windows PowerShell.

2 Type the command below you want to use into Windows Terminal (Admin), and press Enter. (see screenshots below)

Substitute <VM Name> in the command above with the actual virtual machine name (ex: "Windows 11 Home") you want to enable or disable automatic checkpoints for.

For example:
Set-VM -Name "Windows 11 Home" -AutomaticCheckpointsEnabled $True

Set-VM -Name "Windows 11 Home" -AutomaticCheckpointsEnabled $False

That's it,
Shawn Brink