Start-VM - Start Virtual Machine

Start-VM cmdlet in PowerShell starts a virtual machine. Start-VM is used to start one or more virtual machines on Hyper-V hosts. It’s available in the Hyper-V module.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to use the Start-VM cmdlet in PowerShell to start virtual machines on one or more Hyper-V hosts.

Table of Contents hide

1 Start-VM Syntax

2 Start-VM to Start Virtual Machine

3 Start Multiple Virtual Machines

4 Conclusion

Start-VM Syntax

Start-VM starts a virtual machine.

Syntax:

Start-VM
     [-CimSession <CimSession[]>]
     [-ComputerName <String[]>]
     [-Credential <PSCredential[]>]
     [-Name] <String[]>
     [-AsJob]
     [-Passthru]
     [-WhatIf]
     [-Confirm]
     [<CommonParameters>]

Start-VM
     [-VM] <VirtualMachine[]>
     [-AsJob]
     [-Passthru]
     [-WhatIf]
     [-Confirm]
     [<CommonParameters>]

Parameters:

ComputerName: Specifies one or more Hyper-V hosts on which virtual machine is to be started. Default is the local computer.

Name: Specifies the name of the virtual machine to be started.

VM: Specified the name of the virtual machine.

AsJob: Runs the cmdlet as a background job.

CimSession: Run the cmdlet on a remote computer or remote session. Default is the current session of the local computer.

Credentials: Specifies the user accounts who has permission to perform the task. Default is the current user.

Start-VM to Start Virtual Machine

Use Start-VM cmdlet in PowerShell to start the virtual machine as given below

Start-VM -Name VM-1

In the above PowerShell script,

Start-VM command starts virtual machine VM-1 specified by the Name parameter.

The output of the above command is given below

Start-VM - Start Virtual machine — Start-VM – Start Virtual machine

Cool Tip: How to create a resource pool for measuring memory usage of the virtual machine!

Start Multiple Virtual Machines

You can use the Start-VM cmdlet to starts one or more virtual machines on Hyper-V hosts as given below

Start-VM -Name VM*

In the above PowerShell script,

Start-VM starts all virtual machines whose names start with VM.

Cool Tip: How to use test-connection to ping a list of computers!

Conclusion

In the above article, we discussed how to use the Start-VM cmdlet in the PowerShell Hyper-V module to starts one or more virtual machines.

Alternatively, you can also use Hyper-V manager to starts the virtual machine manually.

You can find more topics about PowerShell Active Directory commands and PowerShell basics on the ShellGeek home page.