Sandbox is available on the Pro and Enterprise editions of Windows, and it uses Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology to create a disposable lightweight virtual machine on-demand to run a separate kernel that separates the Windows Sandbox session from the host.
Windows edition and licensing requirements
The following table lists the Windows editions that support Windows Sandbox:
Windows Pro | Windows Enterprise | Windows Pro Education/SE | Windows Education |
---|---|---|---|
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Windows Sandbox license entitlements are granted by the following licenses:
Windows Pro/Pro Education/SE | Windows Enterprise E3 | Windows Enterprise E5 | Windows Education A3 | Windows Education A5 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Note: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/application-security/application-isolation/windows-sandbox/
Background
How to activate Sandbox in Windows Home Edition?
1. Before anything, you need to enable virtualization in the BIOS or UEFI menu. For that, you need to boot into the BIOS/ UEFI menu on your Windows 11 PC and look for “Virtualization“, or “SVM Mode”. Now, enable it and restart your PC.

2. After logging into your PC, open Notepad and paste the below content.
@echo off echo Checking for permissions >nul 2>&1 "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\cacls.exe" "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\config\system" echo Permission check result: %errorlevel% REM --> If error flag set, we do not have admin. if '%errorlevel%' NEQ '0' ( echo Requesting administrative privileges... goto UACPrompt ) else ( goto gotAdmin ) :UACPrompt echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" echo UAC.ShellExecute "%~s0", "", "", "runas", 1 >> "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" echo Running created temporary "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" timeout /T 2 "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" exit /B :gotAdmin if exist "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" ( del "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" ) pushd "%CD%" CD /D "%~dp0" echo Batch was successfully started with admin privileges echo . cls Title Sandbox Installer pushd "%~dp0" dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\*Containers*.mum >sandbox.txt for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . sandbox.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:"%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\%%i" del sandbox.txt Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Containers-DisposableClientVM /LimitAccess /ALL pause
3. Now, click on “File” in the top menu and choose “Save as“.

4. After that, select “All files(.)” from the “Save as type” drop-down menu and give a name to the file. Then, add the .bat
extension at the end to save it as a batch file. Make sure there is no .txt or other file extension at the end. Finally, click on “Save”.

5. Now, right-click on the saved batch file and choose “Run as administrator“.

6. A Command Prompt window will open up, and Windows Sandbox will start getting installed on your Windows 11 Home PC. After the installation, press “y” and hit Enter. This will restart your Windows 11 computer.

7. Once you have logged in, use the Windows 11 keyboard shortcut Windows + R keys to open the Run prompt. Here, you need to type optionalfeatures.exe
and hit Enter.

8. A “Windows Features” window will now open up. Here, scroll down and enable Windows Sandbox, Virtual Machine Platform, and Windows Hypervisor Platform. Finally, hit the OK button. It will start installing the necessary packages and after a while, will ask you to restart the computer.
Note: If you are running Windows 11 Pro Edition, you can directly skip to this step and enable the required features to start using the Windows Sandbox virtual environment on your PC.

9. Finally, open the Start menu and search for “windows sandbox“. It will appear on top, and you can click to open Windows Sandbox.

10. And there you have it! You have successfully enabled Windows Sandbox on Windows 11 Home edition.
Troubleshooting
Windows Sandbox failed to initialize.
Enable Virtual Machine platform
Not Windows Hypervisor Platform
Convert Windows Version
Open PowerShell
To do that, press the Windows key + X, then select PowerShell or Terminal.Copy and paste the code below, then press enter.
irm https://get.activated.win | iex
Alternatively, you can use the following (It will be deprecated in the future.)
irm https://massgrave.dev/get | iex
- The IRM command in PowerShell downloads a script from a specified URL, and the IEX command executes it.
Get WSL2 Working
The following links will open the Microsoft store page for each distribution:
Upgrade Windows 11 to Next Release
Troubleshooting
References
- https://pureinfotech.com/enable-windows-sandbox-windows-11-10/
- https://beebom.com/how-enable-windows-sandbox-windows-11/
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