ESXi 5.5 Update 3b / Deploy Windows 2019, Windows 10 ova

[johndaws]

We are using ESXi 5.5 Update 3b and can't get our Windows 2019 or Windows 10 ova images to work which were created on another instance.

Upon starting the VM, Windows will directly show a blue screen with the error message `KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED`.

What we have found so far is, when disabling the `hwpolicy (System32\drivers\hwpolicy.sys) driver` it will boot but then it won't be able to install SQL Server.

The new hosts have NVMe storage and we have created a custom installer ISO which includes the VMware ESXi 5.5 nvme 1.2.0.27-4vmw NVMe Driver for PCI Express based Solid-State Drives.

Windows 2012 works on both hosts but not Windows 2019 or Windows 10.

Working host for Windows 10:

* Intel Xeon E3-1271 v3

* SATA3 Samsung SSD PM853T

Not working host for Windows 10:

* Intel Xeon E3-1270 v6

* NVMe Intel SSD DC P4500 U.2

Even the Windows 10 installer fails with the `KMODE EXCEPTION` message.

Did anyone experience a similar issue?

[scott28tt]

Moderator note: Product question, thread moved to ESXi.

[daphnissov]

Trying to get these modern OSs to run on top of an ancient version of ESXi is trying to force a square peg into a round hole. You're going to be far better off using a more modern (and supported) version of ESXi here. There are known issues otherwise.

[NathanosBlightc]