Hyper-V is a Microsoft hypervisor product. A hypervisor is computer software that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called a host machine, and each virtual machine is called a guest machine. This means that you could run other operating systems within your host system, which would be Windows in the case of Hyper-V.

To run Hyper-V you need Windows 10 or 11 Professional or Enterprise versions. If you have Home, you will need to upgrade to be able to run Hyper-V. You also need your system to be 64 bit, not 32 bit. If the Pro requirement is too much for you now, you might try Oracle’s VirtualBox or VMware.

To “install” Hyper-V, you need to turn on the Windows feature. Go to the Start and search for turn windows features on or off. Click on the best match to open the prompt. Click the check box for Hyper-V. Reboot if necessary.

The Hyper-V Manager is used to provide management access to your virtualization platform. The logo for Hyper-V Manager is shown at the top of this post as two blue computer towers.

Alternatively you can use VMWare instead of Hyper-V.