Windows 8.1 Professional or Enterprise versions have a built-in Hyper-V feature, which can be really useful while building a homelab. To sucessfully enable this feature you need to you need the following :

• Operating System version, mentioned before
• BIOS-level Hardware Virtualization support
• At least 4GB RAM
• 64 bit processor with SLAT (Second Level Address Translation)

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012/2012R2 can be installed without SLAT, however if you want to enable Hyper-V feature on Windows 8/8.1 without SLAT, simply forget about it. So some time ago I replaced my a little bit old computer with new Intel i5 4th Generation. I was able to add all Hyper-V features, I have even created a machine inside Hyper-V, but when I tried to start the machine I’ve received following error

What the hell ? I checked all the services, they were running. Of course as standard windows admin I did a reboot – it solves 90% of issues :), but not this time. I looked for a while and this simple command solved my issue

Then just another reboot and then I could start every virtual machine, so my homelab was alive on Hyper-V on Windows 8.1 Pro.