Enable Virtual Machine Platform causes BSOD loop

[SDHank]

There's another post on the forums that describes exactly the same problem I was having.

Here: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lockup/Enable-Virtual-Machine-Platform-causes-BSOD-l...

The summary is this - enabling the VirtualMachinePlatform feature to install WSL2 caused a boot loop in Windows 10.

After a very long process of working with HP support (thanks Escalations department and Zaul) I have  the VirtualMachinePlatform feature  enabled and  WSL2 installed in Windows 10  without bluescreens during reboots.

What worked for me is to install the latest bios update for the 15z-eh000 CTO - F.15 Rev.A dated Aug 24 2021, do a cloud recovery to completely wipe and reinstall the machine, go through the full Windows 10 updates to get latest everything for patches and updates, and then install SP133163, which is a Realtek card reader driver update.  There is a newer version of the Realtek driver available as SP134515 and that seems to work as well.

After that I manually enabled the VirtualMachinePlatform function and rebooted successfully, Once I saw that working I did the full WSL2 installation using Microsoft's instructions.

Hope this helps someone else.

[RodrigoB]

Hello SDHank,

Thank you for visiting our community, we are glad that you have resolved the issue you were experiencing on your device.

In this case, we thank you for sharing the solution, so that you can help other users who are experiencing the same problem.

Please, reach out if we can help you with anything else.

HP Support Community.

[SDHank]

A followup note to anyone with this this problem. First just try installing the updated driver as that might be all you need to do.  I had been experimenting with various drivers and changes for weeks so my machine was in a weird state and a fresh install was necessary.  It probably won't be necessary on your machine.

[dynamicolor77]

Hello,

I'm having this same problem on my HP Pavilion concerning enabling the virtual machine platform for WSL2, except I'm running Windows 11 currently (however, I believe this problem first started while running Windows 10, as I tried it once and gave up).

SDHank, would you mind sharing how to update the Realtek driver? I'm relatively certain its the issue because I already have the latest BIOS.

[dynamicolor77]

I was able to find the driver on my own.

The latest driver is listed on HP's site here: https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp134501-135000/sp134515.exe

Then you can just run the executable and it will install the latest driver for you. Once it was installed, enabling the virtual machine platform worked fine, and I was able to avoid the boot loop, even on Windows 11.

[SDHank]

Good to hear it works with Windows 11 too!  I hadn't tried that yet.

[juannavas]

Thank you so much!! That worked for me too, on Windows 11!