Unexpected message about WSA failing to start

Today I got a notification popup saying that WSA failed to start because Hyper-V was not enabled. (I don't remember the exact verbiage and the message left no footprints so I can't check.) I suppose I may have been getting this message for weeks and was just not looking when the popup was displayed. In any case, the message is absolutely correct: I have WSA installed, haven't tried using it for probably 3 weeks, don't want to be using it now, and have had Hyper-V turned off for at least 2 weeks.

Why is Windows even trying to start WSA? Does it start on it's own without my requesting it? If so, do I have to uninstall it to keep it from trying to start? If so, is that also the case with WSL? I haven't seen any messages about it, but I may have just missed them.

pokeefe0001 said:

Today I got a notification popup saying that WSA failed to start because Hyper-V was not enabled. (I don't remember the exact verbiage and the message left no footprints so I can't check.) I suppose I may have been getting this message for weeks and was just not looking when the popup was displayed. In any case, the message is absolutely correct: I have WSA installed, haven't tried using it for probably 3 weeks, don't want to be using it now, and have had Hyper-V turned off for at least 2 weeks.

Why is Windows even trying to start WSA? Does it start on it's own without my requesting it? If so, do I have to uninstall it to keep it from trying to start? If so, is that also the case with WSL? I haven't seen any messages about it, but I may have just missed them.

Click to expand...

I have no clue about WSA, but Appauls usually has good advice/solutions...

pokeefe0001 said:

Today I got a notification popup saying that WSA failed to start because Hyper-V was not enabled. (I don't remember the exact verbiage and the message left no footprints so I can't check.) I suppose I may have been getting this message for weeks and was just not looking when the popup was displayed. In any case, the message is absolutely correct: I have WSA installed, haven't tried using it for probably 3 weeks, don't want to be using it now, and have had Hyper-V turned off for at least 2 weeks.

Why is Windows even trying to start WSA? Does it start on it's own without my requesting it? If so, do I have to uninstall it to keep it from trying to start? If so, is that also the case with WSL? I haven't seen any messages about it, but I may have just missed them.

Click to expand...

I've used WSA, and never enabled Hyper-V. I enabled Virtual Machine Platform only. Not currently using it.

WSA uses the Machine Platform Hypervisor which starts automatically each time you login. WSA is only used for the Amazon Appstore.

If you are not using it, I would uninstall Machine Platform Hypervisor from Windows Features menu.

cereberus said:

WSA uses the Machine Platform Hypervisor which starts automatically each time you login. WSA is only used for the Amazon Appstore.

If you are not using it, I would uninstall Machine Platform Hypervisor from Windows Features menu.

Click to expand...

I was using a modified WSA that used Google Play rather than Amazon Appstore, but I'm not using either any more. (I don't remember which Android emulator I finally ended up using - LDPlayer, maybe.) I'll delete WSA and turn off Hyper-V Platform. I think Macrium Reflect's viBoot needs the platform, but I can always turn it back on when I need viBoot.

pokeefe0001 said:

I was using a modified WSA that used Google Play rather than Amazon Appstore, but I'm not using either any more. (I don't remember which Android emulator I finally ended up using - LDPlayer, maybe.) I'll delete WSA and turn off Hyper-V Platform. I think Macrium Reflect's viBoot needs the platform, but I can always turn it back on when I need viBoot.

Click to expand...

There could be something in Task Scheduler that is searching for google updates?

You can do a bcdedit that turns off the hyper-v hypervisor if you prefer.

Interesting. I found the Amazon Appstore in my Start list. I wasn't expecting that so I uninstalled it. An error popup flashed but was gone before I could read it. (No event log or notification was created.) Now I can find not evidence of WSA anywhere.

The WSA failed to start message appeared only once ... that I've seen. I won't worry unless I see it again.

pokeefe0001 said:

Interesting. I found the Amazon Appstore in my Start list. I wasn't expecting that so I uninstalled it. An error popup flashed but was gone before I could read it. (No event log or notification was created.) Now I can find not evidence of WSA anywhere.

The WSA failed to start message appeared only once ... that I've seen. I won't worry unless I see it again.

Click to expand...

I think you have got to the root cause of your errors. You may still have WSA running - to stop it completely, you need to untick Virtual Machine Platform. I suspect the error message about hyper-v was just a glitch - mind you MS do not really make things clear.

Back in the day, we only had 1 hypervisor and hyper-v was the gui interface, and the two things became synonymous.

However, the hypervisor has several parts to it and not all of the hyper-v hypervisor is needed for other functions e.g. defender Credential Guard. So a new Hypervisor "Windows Hypervisor Platform has been introduced which is just a subset of the hypervisor platform.

To muddy the waters, WHP also has APIs to allow type 2 hypervisors to run even if the Hyper-V Hypervisor is installed.

And finally to completely confuse us, there is the Virtual Machine Platform which allows virtualised apps to run virtually but as far as I can tell does not actually run virtual machines (at least in their entirety).

Confused? I as sure as hell was, and have done lots of googling and testing. Like everything, MS either treats us like 5 year olds "Ooh look at these cool emojis" or they treat us as mega-IT experts with a brain the size of a planet "the virtualised substack layer operates beneath the MSIX virtualised containers which are hardware protected against interactions from the kernel layer" (ok made that gobbeldygook up but you know what I mean LOL). They have a spectacular inability to target at the average sort of person who frequents these forums.

See my other post Clarifying Hypervisor requirements