Windows 10 VM sluggish compared to Windows 7 VM, any ideas why?

[darob13]

Hi, I'm new here. I've been running a Windows 7 VM with Fusion 8.5.10 with out problems but a new Windows 10 VM with the same Fusion settings is laggy and sluggish by comparison. Computer is Mac Pro early 2009, 16 Gb RAM. 9 Gb RAM assigned to Fusion, 3D acceleration enabled, VT-x/EPT enabled. I've uninstalled the Windows 10 preloaded apps I don't need etc and consulted various performance oriented websites for help. There doesn't appear to be any difference with these changes.

Any ideas what else I should do? Any advice appreciated, thanks.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Windows 10 requires significantly more resources than Windows 7.  That's a pretty old machine and may not have the CPU functions that Win10 relies on.

Make sure you haven't given more than N-1 physical cores to the VM, and that you changed the virtual OS setting for the VM to Windows 10 from 7.

[wila]

Hi,

When you say "VT-x/EPT enabled" do you mean this?

If so, then unless you want to run virtual machines in your virtual machine you don't need it (and it certainly will not make things faster)

On your machine I would not assign more than 2 cores to that VM.

--

Wil

[darob13]

Thanks for the feedback. I think you're right re the computer limitations. I've noticed everything speeds up when the realtime anti-virus protection is off, which supports that idea.

[darob13]

Thanks, I've disabled the hypervisor apps function. The VM performance websites I've checked seemed to suggest enabling it would improve performance without saying what it's actually for, which I clearly don't need.  Cheers.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Realtime shouldn't slow things down, but scans certainly do.  System restore is another feature that can cause major slowdowns.

[darob13 · Accepted solution]

Hey I found a couple executable files that I trust and have added to the antivirus exclusion list and it’s made all the difference. I won’t name them bc who am I to suggest what’s safe or not but if anyone else is running an older computer you may be able to use the Task Manager to help you with this.