Why do you have to elevate PowerShell to use Hyper-V cmdlets?

  • Article

Short answer - you don't!  Or more accurately - you should not need to.

Every now and then someone complains to me about the fact that they need to run PowerShell "As Administrator" in order to see any of their virtual machines.  This is actually not necessary - but is indicative of a configuration issue with your installation of Hyper-V.  Hyper-V allows anyone to create and control virtual machines, without being administrator, as long as they are part of the "Hyper-V Administrators" group.

If you find that you can only use Hyper-V PowerShell cmdlets when running "As Administrator" - this means that your account is a member of the "Administrators" group - but not the "Hyper-V Administrators" group.  To fix this you will need to:

  1. Open Windows Explorer
  2. Right Click on your PC
  3. Select Manage
  4. Go to System Tools, Local Users and Groups, Groups
  5. Double click on the Hyper-V Administrators group
  6. Add your user account

After you do this you will need to log out and log back in.  Then you will be able to use Hyper-V in PowerShell without running as administrator.

Cheers,
Ben