Fix: A Requested Power Operation is Already in Progress

While installing Windows 11 on a VM, I encountered the error “A Requested Power Operation is Already in Progress.” In this guide, I will explain why you get this error and the steps to resolve it.

Setting up a virtual machine is a simple process and typically takes around 20–25 minutes. The VMs that I create are usually for testing the Intune features, Windows insider preview features, and operating system deployments via Configuration Manager.

My virtual machine abruptly crashed when I was installing Windows 11 and configuring it for testing the insider preview features. I was unable to restart it or shut it down. I hope the solution in this tutorial helps if you are having the same problem as me.

Fix A requested power operation is Already in Progress

There are two reasons why you encounter the error ‘A Requested Power Operation Is Already in Progress‘ for a virtual machine:

1. The virtual machine’s power state changes unexpectedly or the VM operation enters a critical error.
2. The VMware workstation VMX service is hung and

To resolve this issue, all you need to do is kill the VMware Workstation VMX task from the task manager and reboot the VM. That should solve your issue.

In the screenshot above, you can see that my VM is absolutely in a hung state during its operation. At this point, I was unable to activate my mouse within the VM, nor was I able to shut down or restart the virtual machine.

When I attempted to force reset my virtual machine via Power options, that didn’t work, and I got the error message “A Requested Power Operation is Already in Progress.”

Whenever you encounter this error, the solution is to open the task manager and switch to the Processes tab. Right-click the VMware Workstation VMX service and select End task. After ending this task, reboot the VM and your issue will be resolved.

Windows OS Recovery

In some cases, when you end the VMware Workstation VMX task from task manager and reboot your VM, it shows the OS recovery screen. You don’t have to repair your OS or get into advanced repair options. Select Restart my PC and this will boot up your Windows normally.

Read Next

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