I don't understand how the cores setting works because it isn't 1:1 or 2:1.

[rtobyr]

I've been working on upgrading my Windows 10 VM to Windows 11. TPM: No problem. Cores: Problem. Windows 11 requires 2 cores. Here is a breakdown of VMware core settings to Windows's detection of cores (via PC Health Check, Task Manager, and CPU-Z):

VMware core settings : Windows 10 guest detected cores

1:Not tried

2 VMware : 1 Guest Windows

3 VMware : 1 Guest Windows

4 VMware : 1 Guest Windows

5 VMware : 5 Guest Windows

6 VMware : 3 Guest Windows

How the heck do VMware CPU cores translate into guest OS CPU cores?

INFO:

• Host: Mac OS Monterey 12.4
• Guest: Windows 10 Home Edition with all updates
• Mac model: iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)
• 3.1GHz 6‑core 10th-generation Intel Core i5
• VMware Fusion 12.2.3

Thank you for any help.

[bluefirestorm]

The entry cpuid.coresPerSocket is likely missing from the vmx configuration file of your VM that is why Windows 11 is not happy about meeting at least two cores requirement.

There are two vmx entries related to total virtual logical CPUs, and virtual cores.

number virtual socket = numvcpus / cpuid.coresPerSocket

The number of virtual socket supported for Windows 7/8/10/11 OS depends on the edition

Home 1
Professional 2
Enterprise 4

So for example for Home edition, your numvCPUs and cpuid.coresPerSocket has to be equal to have 1 virtual socket.

numvcpus = "4"
cpuid.coresPerSocket = "4"

[Technogeezer]

Also, There is no fixed “mapping” of physical to virtual cores. Each virtual core is a independently running thread on the host operating system. It is possible to oversubscribe the number of physical CPUs by running VMs with a total number of virtual cores that exceed the number of physical cores. That’s why the recommendation to run VMs with a total number of virtual cores of no more than n-1, where n is the number of physical cores (so that the host OS gets some cycles).