Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine

While starting a virtual machine on Hyper-V, if you get Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine error, here is how you can fix the issue. It rarely happens in some situations, but you can fix it within moments and continue with the install process without any problem.

The entire error message reads like this:

The application encountered an error while attempting to change the state of ’virtual-machine-name’.

‘virtual-machine-name’ failed to start.

Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine virtual-machine-name.

Could not initialize memory: Not enough memory resources are available to complete this operation. (0x8007000E).

Why does Not enough memory error appear on Hyper-V?

Installing any operating system on Hyper-V virtual machine requires enough amount of memory or RAM. The more RAM you can assign to the virtual machine, the better it will be in terms of smoothness. Let’s assume that you have a computer with 8GB of RAM. If you have that much RAM installed, a few will not be usable for Hyper-V since other apps require RAM to run on your computer.

In such situations, if your assigned memory for the virtual machine exceeds the free or available RAM amount, you can find the aforementioned error. In fact, the error message clearly implies that your computer doesn’t have enough memory to run the virtual machine.

The solution is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is to decrease the amount of memory for the virtual machine.

Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine

If you see Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine error 0x8007000E on Hyper-V, follow these suggestions to fix the issue on your Windows 11/10 computer:

1. Close the error window.
2. Click on the red power button to shut it down.
3. Select the virtual machine and click the Turn Off button.
4. Right-click on the virtual machine.
5. Select the Settings option.
6. Switch to the Memory tab.
7. Enter a memory lower than the existing one.
8. Click the OK button.
9. Restart the virtual machine.

To learn more about these steps, continue reading.

First, you need to close the error window and click on the red power button to shut it down. However, if the Turn Off option is available, you can directly click on it.

In most cases, the Turn off option will be grayed out. In such situations, you can shut it down first and then select the virtual machine and click on the Turn Off button visible on the right sidebar.

Without turning off the virtual machine, you cannot change anything related to virtual hardware. Once the turn off is completed, you can right-click on the virtual machine and select the Settings option from the context menu.

Following that, switch to the Memory tab visible on the left sidebar. Here you can find all the memory or RAM-related information. In the first box, you can see the assigned amount of RAM, which created issues earlier. Now, you need to enter a low amount of RAM in the same box.

Let’s assume that you had 4096 MB of RAM. In that case, you can enter 3072 MB or 3GB of RAM. Once done, click the OK button and try to restart the virtual machine.

If the problem remains the same, you need to close some unnecessary background processes and apps. On the other hand, you can restart your computer as well.

Fix: No operating system was loaded error in Hyper-V

How do I fix Not enough memory resources are available to complete this operation?

To fix the Not enough memory resources are available to complete this operation error in Hyper-V, you must assign a low amount of memory for the virtual machine. If the virtual machine cannot access the assigned memory, it displays such an error with an error code (0x8007000E). Therefore, you can turn off the virtual machine and open the Settings panel to get the job done.

Hope this guide helped.

Read: The Virtual Machine Management service encountered an error while configuring the hard disk.