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Avoid pausing a virtual machine

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Applies to: Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016

For more information about best practices and scans, see Run Best Practices Analyzer Scans and Manage Scan Results.

Property Details
Operating System Windows Server 2016
Product/Feature Hyper-V
Severity Warning
Category Configuration

In the following sections, italics indicates UI text that appears in the Best Practices Analyzer tool for this issue.

Issue

This server has one or more virtual machines in a paused state.

Impact

Depending on the amount of available memory, you might not be able to run additional virtual machines.

Paused virtual machines don't release their allocated memory, which means that memory isn't available to start other virtual machines.

Resolution

If this is intentional, no further action is required. Otherwise, consider resuming these virtual machines or shutting them down.

Use Hyper-V Manager to resume the virtual machine

  1. Open Hyper-V Manager. (From the Tools menu of Server Manager, click Hyper-V Manager.)

  2. From the Virtual Machines list, find the virtual machines with a state of Paused.

    Important

    A state of Paused-critical occurs when there is very little free space remaining on the physical storage for that virtual machine. Before you attempt to resume a virtual machine in this state, free up available space on the physical storage.

  3. Right-click each virtual machine name, then click Resume. This returns the virtual machine to a running state. After that, if you want to shut down the virtual machine, right-click it again and choose Shut down.

Use Windows PowerShell to resume the virtual machine

You can do this in one command by using filtering and the pipeline after you get all virtual machines on the host. Type:

get-vm | where state -eq 'paused' | resume-vm