← All tech

Windows Hypervisor Platform

vmhypervisor

Microsoft's API exposing Hyper-V's hardware virtualization to third-party userspace , the Windows KVM analog.

documentedWindows Hypervisor Platform API docs ↗

The Windows Platform (WHP) is a user-mode API that lets third-party virtual machine monitors use the hardware virtualization managed by Hyper-V. It is the Windows counterpart to KVM and HVF, and the layer libkrun uses to run on Windows. Each guest runs with its own kernel behind a hardware boundary.

Strengths

  • Exposes hardware virtualization to third-party VMMs on Windows
  • The KVM/HVF analog that lets cross-platform VMMs (libkrun) run on Windows
  • Hardware-enforced VM boundary, own guest kernel

Limitations

  • Windows only
  • Requires Hyper-V and CPU virtualization extensions
  • Low-level API, needs a VMM on top

Powers

libkrun

Compare with

KVMHypervisor.frameworklibkrun

Sources