ESXi inside vmware Player??

[ChrisKluka]

Hello,

I am trying to build a lab inside my desktop workstation.  Configuration is:

(physical host) Core i5 x64 /w VT enabled
- (os) Win 7 professional x64
- - (hypervisor) VMWare Player (client set as "Other 64-bit OS"

- - - (os/hypervisor) VMWare ESXi 5.0.0

- - - - (os) Win 2K8 R2

The Win 2K8 R2 will not start. The reported message is that the CPU does not support 64 bit execution.

My understanding was that the above would work... Is there some restriction that I cant run a 64 bit client OS inside a 64 bit ESXi VM Host? as compared to a 64 bit ESXi physical host?

[mcowger · Accepted solution]

Correct - you cannot do double nested 64bit VMs. (unless you run ESXi5 on ESXi5 on bare metal).

[Dave_Mishchenko]

To run a nested 64 bit guest OS,   the host's hypervisor must be able to pass Intel VT-x into the guest hypervisor's VM.  That's not possible at this point with VMware Player.  So your only option in this case would be to run a 32 bit guest OS which would exclude W2K8 R2.

ESXi 5 is capable of passing through VT-x so you could run an ESXi VM on ESXi 5 and then run nested 64 bit guests on the ESXi VM.