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alexburn
Contributor
Contributor

Error after upgrading from WS 12.5.9 to WS 14 Player

I previously had Workstation 12.5.9 installed and working fine, although this was only on a 30 day trial.

Some months after the trial expired, I uninstalled this and installed Workstation 14.1.2 Player - This should meet our needs and does not have a trial expiration.

However, when I try to run the same OVA image, I receive an error stating that Intel VT-x is disabled (screenshot attached), even though it isn't.

The configuration of the machine is no different to when WS 12.5.9 was running.

I've already tried doing a clean uninstall/install numerous times but same result.

Can anyone recommend anything I can do to get this VM to run?

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bluefirestorm
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Workstation/Player version 14.x requires an Intel CPU that is from Westmere microarchitecture (circa 2010) or newer as it makes uses of features called Intel EPT and VMX Unrestricted Guest. There are certain Intel CPUs launched after 2010 that also don't have either or both features.

From the error message, it also shows "This host does not support "Intel EPT" hardware assisted MMU virtualization". Chances are the CPU that you have is from Penryn or older microarchitecture; example: Core 2 Duo CPUs do not have Intel EPT.

So either you have to use a different host machine that has an Intel CPU that is Westmere or newer or you download and install version 12.5.9 of Player into the current machine.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation_player/12_0

alexburn
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you for this info, that's quite helpful.

Is there an easy way to determine if this is a supported CPU or not?

Running systeminfo returns this about the CPU...

  • System Model: Dell PowerEdge R610 (Xeon X5660)
  • Processor: Intel64 Family 6 Model 44 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~2793 Mhz

Regards

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bluefirestorm
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X5660 is a Westmere CPU.

https://ark.intel.com/products/47921/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5660-12M-Cache-2_80-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QP...

You can also look at the vmware.log from previous runs of the VM. There are huge sections in the vmware.log that show the CPUID instruction output. The VMX Unrestricted Guest is indicated by MSR 0x485, and bit 5 needs to be 1 to indicate presence of the VMX Unrestricted Guest. VMX Unrestricted Guest requires Intel EPT to work.

Perhaps the first message in the error dialog should be followed. Have you tried disabling the "Trusted Execution" in the BIOS of the host machine? It might appear as "TXT" for "Trusted eXecution Technology".

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bluefirestorm
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If you have not already done so, you might want to update the BIOS of the machine as well.

It looks like the R610 has a BIOS update that includes a microcode for Spectre SSBD.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=0YV9D

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