Virtual machine error during activation

Issue

You see the following error when activating HydroSym:

“The function failed because this instance of your program is running inside a virtual machine / hypervisor and you’ve prevented the function from running inside a VM.”

Cause

HydroSym’s node-locked licenses (Free Trial, Subscription, and Perpetual) are designed not to run in a virtual machine by default, as a security measure. This includes environments like Hyper-V, VMware, and VirtualBox.

If you're using a virtualized environment, you’ll need to use a Floating license (Anywhere or Perpetual Networked License) instead.

How to Check If You're Using a Virtual Machine

To see if your system is running virtualization features:

1. Open the Windows Start menu and type:

   Turn Windows features on or off

   In the dialog that appears, look for any of these options being checked:

   • Hyper-V Platform
     • Hyper-V Hypervisor
     • Hyper-V Services
   • Virtual Machine Platform
   • Windows Hypervisor Platform
   • Windows Defender Application Guard

These features indicate that virtualization is enabled on your machine.

How to Disable Hyper-V

If you are not intending to run HydroSym in a VM and want to disable virtualization:

1. Open Turn Windows features on or off as above.
2. Uncheck any of the following if enabled:
   • Hyper-V Platform
   • Virtual Machine Platform
   • Windows Hypervisor Platform
   • Windows Defender Application Guard
3. Click OK to apply changes and close the dialog.
4. Open the Start menu, type cmd .
5. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator.
6. In the command prompt window, enter:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

7. After seeing “The operation completed successfully”, restart your computer.

Need to Run HydroSym in a Virtual Machine?

If your workflow requires using a VM, please contact us to discuss switching to a Floating license, which is compatible with virtual environments.

📩 Email: info@paro.nl