Fix for 'VM Service Not Running' error in Cowork on Windows 11
Diagnosing and fixing the virtualization error
A user on r/ClaudeAI reported encountering a 'VM Service Not Running' error in Cowork on Windows 11 Home, particularly when tinkering with MCPs. The error appeared and disappeared randomly. After checking that Hyper-V was installed and running, they discovered the root cause: the hypervisor wasn't set to launch at boot.
Diagnostic command
To check if this is the issue, run this PowerShell command:
bcdedit /enum | findstr -i hypervisor
If the output shows hypervisorlaunchtype Off, that's the problem. The hypervisor needs to be active at the boot level, not just running as a service after Windows loads.
Fix command
To resolve this, run:
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
After running this command, perform a full restart of your system and try Cowork again. The user confirmed this fixed their issue after multiple troubleshooting attempts.
📖 Read the full source: r/ClaudeAI
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