Creating Hyper-V Administrators group in Windows 10

Question

I am receiving the error "Unable to add user to the Hyper-V Administrators group. Exit code 2220" while attempting to deploy to an MS Android emulator. I am able to deploy windows mobile emulators as well as Linux VMs in Hyper-V.

• Windows 10 Pro
• Visual Studio 2015 Professional Update 1
• MS VS Emulator for Android 1.0.60106.1
• Xamarin 4.0.0.1717

I do not have a Hyper-V Administrators group. Numerous questions and blogs have suggested that I uninstall Hyper-V and reinstall. I tried this, it didn't create the Hyper-V Administrators group.

I've read several articles from Ben Armstrong (aka twitter @virtualpcguy) a Hyper-V Program Manager on how to manually create/add users to the group, as well as some powershell scripts to automate this. Unfortunately these are based on Server 2008 R2, Windows 7, and Windows 8. In my reading it looks like windows 10 does not use InitialStore.xml

• Allowing non-Administrators to control Hyper-V
• Allowing non-Administrators to control Hyper-V–Updated
• Creating a “Hyper-V Administrators” local group through PowerShell
• Setting up non-administrative control of Hyper-V through PowerShell

Although I can manually add a group, Hyper-V Administrators, using lusrmgr.msc and add myself as a user I don't know how to apply the permissions for Hyper-V.

Note: This Windows 10 was installed with a non pro version, then upgraded to Pro. Might this be a factor in the missing Hyper-V Supervisors group?

Skidmore

Sorry Jeff, since you asked me personally to look at this, I wanted to leave this comment. But, I don't know the answer to this one. – Watts

This happened to me before with Visual Studio Android emulators, I did try the uninstall Hyper-V/reinstall Hyper-V trick, but it didn't work. The fix (for me) was to uninstall the emulators, delete all Hyper-V machines (and network switches), reinstall emulators and deploy first app. When the emulator ran for the first time, HyperV prompted me again via UAP and then it worked. – Trin

I ran into the same problem after installing Windows 10 Enterprise. In my installation of Windows I elected to create my user based on my organizations Azure AD. I enabled Hyper-V before installing Visual Studio 2015 Update 2. After installing VS I installed the VS Android Emulators however I was not able to launch the emulator due to the Error Code 2220. I noticed that the failing application is the prereq executable (xpeprereqs.exe I think). I am able to manage VMs in Hyper-V although I don't have the Hyper-V Administrators group. – Onus

see my answer at : https://mcmap.net/q/1011876/-vs-emulator-for-android-error-with-hyper-v – Aria

Answer 1

It is not currently possible for users to properly create the Hyper-V Administrators group.

Via Twitter I reached out to Ben Armstrong (@VirtualPCGuy) a Principle Program Manager at Microsoft who works on the Hyper-V development team. He did some research on my question with this followup.

1. Jeff, this is being looked at now. Do not know the root cause.
2. Summary is: some methods for installing Windows 10 mean the HV admin group is missing.
3. Unfortunately, it is a "special" group - so the user cannot recreate it.
4. Right now you can: 1) reinstall Win 10 or 2) wait for a fix (date undetermined)

Skidmore

When "upgrading" from Home to Pro, the "User and Group" facility is not upgraded. I think this is the ultimate source of the issue. – Aria

This article contains information on how to modify a windows 10 .iso to allow 'pro' to be selected during install. – Skidmore

Answer 2

I spent quite a bit of time on this same problem.

Here is a fix:

I knew that the problem was upgrading from Home -> Pro and already having the anniversary update. Several times I tried reinstalling with the Windows Media Creation Tool, however, this tool does not offer a Pro option and will only install the default version of Windows in your Registry and then force you to upgrade through the Windows Store.

So how do you force Windows to install Pro? I believe this is new with the anniversary update, but go to "Recovery" in "Settings" and click "Get Started" under "Reset this PC". I did a clean reinstall (no saved files or settings, so I don't know if the alternative will work) and Windows took care of the rest. I think this works because the tool uses the CURRENT version of Windows you have and reinstalls that.

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