Apple - How to turn on Hardware Virtualization on Late 2013 MacBook Pro (for Windows 8.1 using Boot Camp)?

It sounds like you're running into the same issue I did, where after booting into Windows the VT-x shows as 'Disabled' in Task Manager.

Not sure how or why, but after going into

• OS X
• System Preferences
• Target Disk
• Select the BOOTCAMP disk as the startup disk

Everything was well after that and I could happily use Hyper-V, even from a cold boot.

If I cold booted using the Options-key, and then selecting Windows, VT-x was disabled in Task Manager.

Go figure. Could some Mac genius out there explain this one?

EDIT: I found a better way to get this working instead of the boot dance originally suggested (it's below for reference). Basically set enable_and_lock_vmx true in rEFInd and that's it. Details below ...

Suggested method

1. Disable macOS System Integrity Protection/SIP (Reboot Mac, hold down Command + R keys, at "OS X Utilities Utilities" pick "Terminal" menu item -> type in terminal csrutil disable; reboot)
2. Back inside macOS after the reboot, get rEFInd and extract it anywhere (desktop, downloads etc)
3. Open a terminal window, cd to where you extracted it and edit via sudo nano refind/refind.conf-sample
4. Uncomment enable_and_lock_vmx and set to true i.e. the whole line should read enable_and_lock_vmx true. <= This is what really fixes the issue!
5. [optional] While here, change the timeout to something quick, like 4 or 5 i.e. timeout 4
6. Install rEFInd by running ./refind-install from terminal. The sample config you edited is used as the installed config.
7. [optional] Enable SIP again. Follow #1 above but run csrutil enable; reboot instead

This method is very smooth - it works on normal as well as encrypted disks (FileVault2, VeraCrypt or BitLocker) and really takes a few minutes to install. Best of all, it works in every reboot.

Old method

None of the other methods worked for me, especially since my Windows 10 was Bitlocker encrypted i.e. it doesn't show up in Startup Disks to chose to reboot to. The steps below work though

1. Power off

   Not just a hard reboot; fully powered off; as in 'count to 10 when off' off

2. Power on and Boot to OS X desktop

   This process loads virtualization properly. In my case, I had to hold option and select OS X, enter my FileVault password (my OS X is encrypted) and then wait to boot into OS X desktop.

3. Reboot to Windows

   Soft reboot via the Apple menu i.e. top left Apple icon => restart. During bootup select Windows/Bootcamp (via the option key). My Windows was Bitlocker encrypted, so I entered the disk password, booted to Windows, entered Windows password, landed on Windows 10 desktop. This time Hyper-V was present and functional!

I'm putting this here for future reference but I hope Apple actually fixes their Bootcamp boot process. It's been broken for 8 years now and the above hackery is ridiculous for a $3000 machine and when Bootcamp is an officially supported Mac feature.

It seems that if you boot directly to Windows it doesn't work, but if you boot to OS X and switch to Windows, it works. Or you can boot to Windows, change to OS X and go back to Windows again.