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Fixing OnVUE “Virtual Machine Detected” Error (When You’re Not Using a VM)

If you’re a developer taking an online proctored exam using Pearson OnVUE, you might hit this terrifying message during the system check:

❌ “A virtual machine has been detected. Please close all virtual machine software before continuing.”

The problem?

You’re not using a virtual machine.

That’s exactly what happened to me.

Here’s what I did to fix it.

🧨 The Issue

OnVUE’s system check failed because it believed my computer was running inside a virtual machine.

Reality:

  • No VMware
  • No VirtualBox
  • No obvious VM running
  • Just a normal Windows machine

But I do use:

  • WSL
  • Docker
  • Visual Studio Code with container extensions
  • Hyper-V

And that’s likely where the problem started. If virtualization-related services are running in the background, it can fail the pre-check.

Note: I’m not 100% sure every step was required, but I’m documenting everything that I did.

🛠 Step 1 – Shutdown wsl, disable Windows Virtualization Features, disable dev drive

I opened Command Prompt as Administrator and ran:

wsl --shutdown
DISM /Online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:VirtualMachinePlatform
dism /online /disable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Hyper-V-All
fsutil devdrv disable

Alternative: using "turn Windows features on or off"

image

After disabling these features, I restarted the computer.

Restarting after turning off Windows features is important.

Verify dev drive and ubuntu (not 100% certain this was required)

  • No Ubuntu distribution visible
  • No mounted WSL filesystem
  • No Dev Drive attached (click detach if needed)
image

🔎 Step 2 – Check Task Manager (Very Important)

After rebooting, I opened Task Manager.

Even though WSL wasn’t in Startup apps, I still saw related background processes.

That means something was triggering it automatically.

So I:

  • Looked for any WSL-related processes
  • Ended those tasks manually

🧩 Step 3 – Investigate Visual Studio Code Extensions

My suspicion: a VS Code extension was starting WSL or container services in the background.

So I:

  1. Opened Visual Studio Code
  2. Went to Extensions
  3. Searched for:
    • docker
    • container
    • wsl
  4. Disabled extensions:
    • Container Tools
    • Dev Containers
    • Renote Development
    • Docker
    • WSL
  5. Restarted the computer
image image image

Run the OnVUE system test again.

If it mentions that a specific process is still running (for example, a browser, background service, or unknown app):

  • Open Task Manager
  • Locate the exact process name shown in the OnVUE warning
  • Click End Task
  • Retry the system check

OnVUE may detect:

  • Background browser processes
  • Hidden services
  • Dev-related tooling
  • Container or virtualization services

🧠 Why This Happens

Tools like:

  • WSL2
  • Docker Desktop
  • Hyper-V
  • Dev Containers

Use virtualization under the hood.

Even if you are not “running a virtual machine,” Windows may still:

  • Keep virtualization services active
  • Automatically start WSL
  • Enable background container services

And OnVUE detects that.

The key takeaway:

Background services can cause OnVUE to fail. So before your exam:

  1. Disable Windows virtualization features and restart the computer
  2. Disable VS Code Docker/WSL/Container extensions and restart the computer
  3. Open Task Manager and end:
    • WSL processes
    • Edge background processes
  4. Run the OnVUE system test. If it mentions that a specific process is still running, use task manager to end it