Is Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) is enabled in your Windows 11? Read more to find out

Recently it was reported that a Windows 11 security feature could reduce game performance by nearly 30%. 

UL benchmarks, the creator of popular 3DMark, Computer Base, and PC Gamer benchmarks, has been testing Windows 11 and has discovered an issue caused by Microsoft's virtualization-based Security (VBS), which can cause a nearly 30% drop in gaming performance in some circumstances.

Now, what is Virtualization-Based Security (VBS)? 

According to Microsoft, VBS uses hardware virtualization features to create and isolate a secure memory region from the normal operating system.

Windows can use this ‘virtual secure mode' to host a variety of security solutions, providing them with significantly increased protection from operating system vulnerabilities and preventing the use of malicious exploits that attempt to circumvent protections.

If you want to know more about it, you can refer to this official document from Microsoft.

How do you know if  Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) is enabled on your PC?

Well, chances are that if you are going to make a clean or fresh installation of Windows 11, the VBS will be enabled by default. But if you are upgrading from Windows 10, It might not be so the case. If you have never tinkered with that setting before, VBS will be disabled. This is due to the fact that VBS is not enabled by default in Windows 10.

Here is how you can check whether VBS is enabled on your Windows 11 or not

Press the ‘Search’ button in Windows to bring the Search bar.

Type ‘MSInfo32’ and press enter.

Once you scroll all the way down inside the ‘System Information’ app, you will see whether VBS is enabled on your PC.

The same method can be used to see if VBS is enabled in Windows 10 too.

According to PCGamer, Microsoft has confirmed that it is working with partners to enable VBS and HVCI on the majority of new PCs over the next year.

If VBS has a negative impact on gaming performance, users rather have it disabled by default. But, for the time being, it appears that gamers will need this workaround to ensure that gaming performance is not adversely affected.