Support for Windows 11 Guest OS, VMware Workstation Player

[JackOatmon]

Does anyone know VMWare's plans for support of Windows 11 as a Guest OS (oh, and as a host OS too)?

There are a whole list of hardware requirements for Windows 11, and so I'm wondering if and how VMWare plans to address these?  Will Windows 11 be usable in VMWare Workstation Player?  Will Workstation Pro be required in order to create a Windows 11 Guest?

Required:

• Processor (must emulate a processor that implements the right instructions)
• RAM (yeah)
• Storage (yeah)
• UEFI 
• TPM 2.0
• DirectX 12 with WDDM 2.0 driver

Plus a whole list of "Feature Specific" items.

See microsoft.com/en-us/windows-11-specifications

[RaSystemlord]

@BlackGator 

For your convenience, I created a summary of the install process here:

System where this is tested since 8-Oct-2021.

Host: Kubuntu 20.04.2, i7 (2nd gen), no TPM, no VMware firmware changes.

VMware Workstation Player version: 16.1.0 build-17198959

All the virtualization options checked in VM Settings. 6 GB RAM allocated.

For more and for a disclaimer, refer to the site:

"https://www.techpowerup.com/287584/windows-11-tpm-requirement-bypass-it-in-5-minutes"

Use this at your own risk. If you are worried, according to Microsoft official announcement, that you loose the manufacturer warranty of your computer, which is so old that it won't fulfill all the Win 11 requirements, don't use these instructions. (sarcasm warning)

1.
Download Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft Site (public).

Tested with Win 11 Pro, English with ISO as published 5-OCT-2021.

2.
Start install normally. When the error message of not fulfilling Win 11 requirements, comes, use Shift+F10 to get into the registry editor (regedit).

3.
Edit the following keys:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig]
"BypassTPMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassSecureBootCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassRAMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassStorageCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassCPUCheck"=dword:00000001

These are script contents. When doing this in an interactive manner, you need to do this manually.

These mean a 32-bit dword with hexa value 1, as they are shown in registry.

If you are installing on a physical computer, you can use these as a script and read the file from a USB stick.

4.
Continue the install normally.

In my experience, all Windows 11 Updates are also working after the install.

[BlackGator]

Hi, Thanks for the instructions; alas the installation still fails: after entering the registry entries
here exported from the registry

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig]
"BypassTPMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassSecureBootCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassRAMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassStorageCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassCPUCheck"=dword:00000001

After clicking on next, the installer restarts, then produces the message,"The processor isn't supported for this version of Windows.

FYI I am using the ISO downloaded on 13 October; i.e. post-release date.

Further I find that Windows Update on my physical machine (cpu is Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1535M v6 @ 3.10GHz 3.10 GHz - as previously mentioned is 2017 vintage, so an absolute antique - satcasm alert) has also refused to upgrade to Windows 11. PC Health Check produces the very same error message.

So, apologies to VMWare for laying the blame on them - it is all M$. To say I am gutted is an understatement as my machine was/is a premium top-of-the-range portable workstation and was very (forme) expensive, and now is effectively end-of-lifed in 4 years when Windows 10 support is withdrawn.

[RaSystemlord]

@BlackGator 

That is strange - there shouldn't ever be strange things happening when installing Windows. My computer is about 9-10 years old, self assembled - so, I'm not really afraid of losing the warranty of the manufacturer. (sarcasm warning).

I can only offer a couple of questions:

- did you download it from regular, public Microsoft Site? Was it labeled differently? My download was on the publish date and the ISO name was plain, without any characteristics of the version. I wouldn't expect any changes between those before-mentioned dates, but Dev versions might be different.

- there was a Windows Update after 5-OCT. It IS processor related, because it made a worse AMD processor performance even worse. However, it reads "CPUcheck" and thus this shouldn't be directly related (indirectly, it could)

- have you checked ALL 3 virtualization checks in VM Settings? I have. Those are CPU related and might indirectly mean something.

EDIT: I ran MD5 checksum comparison to the image downloaded 5-OCT and the image downloaded just now (15-OCT) and they are the same. So, that probably takes out some possibilities that I speculated above.

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

@ BlackGator,

I just tried version 16.2 with the managedVM.autoAddvTPM = "software" VMX entry mentioned in Mike Roy's twitter.

https://twitter.com/mikeroySoft/status/1448675626714501122

I created a new VM (custom install) using the Workstation Beta compatibility (i.e. virtual hardware version 19) and added the line. You have to close the UI and reopen it after adding the entry (as mentioned in the Twitter thread). A virtual TPM is added automatically without having to go through a lengthy VM encryption process.

When I installed the Windows 11 OS, I didn't have to do the registry workarounds. FWIW, the host is a Skylake i7-6700HQ mobile CPU (which has the Software Guard Extensions support for secure enclaves).

[JackOatmon]

I was able to follow this as well with a new install.  If @bluefirestorm had not posted, I would have.  I have an interesting side note to this.  I had a Win 11 in a VM that was on the "Insider Preview" track, that updated to 11 nicely, but when they started to enforce the TPM requirement, it would no longer get updates.  I could also not get that existing VM to take the update.  It's in the .vmx file, but it does not show up in the configuration (or in the VM for that matter).  I will continue to monitor this, there's been some great conversation here!