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I like to be able to use VirtualBox as I am doing a couple of courses that require it, but I also want to use WSL2 (and I'd quite like to use Docker, too).

I don't think VBox works with Hyper-V enabled, so it seems I'd need to switch it on & off whenever needed.

Are there any downsides to switching it on/off?

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    The current version of Docker and VirtualBox (6.1) both absolutely support Hyper-V provided your running the current version of Windows 10 (20H2). WSL2 absolutely does not require Hyper-V to be enabled Hyper-V does not come enabled on any edition of Windows by default. So it likely isn’t enabled currently unless you enabled it.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:05
  • Thanks. It seems that docker desktop can run with a WSL2 backend, so if WSL2 doesn't require hyper-V (I thought that it did) then I suppose it's fine.
    – fffrost
    Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 8:31

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I like to be able to use VirtualBox as I am doing a couple of courses that require it, but I also want to use WSL2 (and I'd quite like to use docker, too). I don't think VBox works with hyper-v enabled, so it seems I'd need to switch it on & off whenever needed.

The current version of Docker and VirtualBox (6.1) both absolutely support Hyper-V provided your running the current version of Windows 10 (20H2). WSL2 absolutely does not require Hyper-V to be enabled Hyper-V does not come enabled on any edition of Windows by default. So it likely isn’t enabled currently unless you enabled it.

Are there any downsides to switching this on/off?

The only notable downside would be the fact that Hyper-V isn’t enabled. You might want to make sure it’s actually currently enabled, since by default, Hyper-V isn’t enabled on any version of Windows 10

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As the doc states at the beginning (the doc also shows how to use Hyper-V paravirtualization with VirtualBox 6):

Since version 6.0, VirtualBox is able to use the Hyper-V API to coexist next to Hyper-V. But, performance will be worse and it does not work with all versions of Windows 10 (versions 1079 and earlier of Windows 10 are not supported).

You can use a multi-boot to boot or not with Hyper-V (if you want) so you don't have to uninstall and reinstall Hyper-V every time.

Here are some steps to use multi-boot for you to check: https://us.informatiweb.net/tutorials/it/virtualization/hyper-v-coexistence-with-virtualbox-or-vmware-workstation.html#solve-problem-with-multi-boot

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