[hdjcktnr]

My understanding is that a fresh Win10 install on modern hardware is actually always running in a hypervisor. So called "core isolation".

Is that correct? I can't find any good article on this, only vague references.

[AshamedCaptain]

I have a similar question. Some people say it's the default, but I have never seen it enabled by default, no matter how recent the hardware or the build number. I wonder under which conditions exactly it is enabled, if any.

[easton]

If Hyper-V, Windows Defender Application Guard (or a couple other Defender features -- credential guard?) or WSL are enabled, Windows starts running under a hypervisor. By default it shouldn't be, unless your OEM or corporate IT has turned one of those features on.

[Bancakes]

How would I turn all that virtualisation off for more performance or is it embedded into the kernel nowadays?

[colejohnson66]

Disable virtualization in the BIOS/UEFI before installing. As for a performance hit, virtualization in the silicon (through Intel VT-x or AMD-x) has almost none. Especially compared to what came before it where a VM had to essentially JIT the virtualized code.

[Bancakes]

Ah, interesting. So this way I will not end up running the same virtualisation in software mode?

[AshamedCaptain]

Yeah, Hyper-V is just hardware virtualisation, it can't run in "emulation" mode.