How to install Multipass on Windows

See also: How to use Virtualbox in Multipass on Windows

Contents:

Check prerequisites

Hyper-V

Only Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, version 1803 (“April 2018 Update”) or later is currently supported. It’s due to the necessary version of Hyper-V only being available on those versions.

VirtualBox

Multipass also supports using VirtualBox as a virtualization provider. You can download the latest version here.

Install, upgrade, uninstall

Download the latest installer from here. You can also get pre-release versions from our GitHub releases page - it’s the .exe file.

Make sure the network you’re connected to is marked Private (which really means Trusted), otherwise Windows will prevent Multipass from starting. We’re working on resolving that issue.

Run the installer and it will guide you through the steps necessary. You will need to allow the installer to gain Administrator privileges.

You will need either Hyper-V enabled (only Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise), or VirtualBox installed.

To upgrade, just download the latest installer and run it.

You will be asked to uninstall the old version, and a second question about whether to remove all data when uninstalling. If you want to keep your instances, answer “No” (the default).

Run

Multipass defaults to using Hyper-V as its virtualization provider. If you’d like to use VirtualBox, start either Command Prompt (cmd.exe) or PowerShell as Administrator and run:

C:\WINDOWS\system32> multipass set local.driver=virtualbox

Now, to run normal Multipass commands, open either Command Prompt (cmd.exe) or PowerShell as a regular user. Use multipass version to check your version or multipass launch to create your first instance.


Last updated 10 months ago.