Nested 32-bit VM on ESXI 7 on Workstation 16

[aleswalker]

Hi all

I have Workstation 16.2 and I've built a couple of virtal ESXi7 VMs and virtual Center. My laptop is a corporate device and had credential guard running and I can't turn that off.

To get the ESXi VM to run, I've had to uncheck the 'Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI' options.

I have the message that I can only run 32-bit VMs and that's fine for my purposes. My question is how I specify that the VM is 32-bit.

I've created a VM and I have specified the Guest OS Version as 'Other 2.6.x.Linux (32-bit)' but when I power the VM on I get:

"This host does not support Intel VT-x. Failed to start the virtual machine. Module MonitorMode power on failed. VMware ESX does not support the user level monitor on this host. This host appears to be running in a virtual machine with VHV disabled. Ensure that VHV is enabled in the virtual machine configuration file. This host does not support "Intel EPT" hardware assisted MMU virtualization."

Thanks
Les

[Mikero · Accepted solution]

Nested VMs are not possible when Credential Guard is enabled, full stop.

This is a limitation in the Microsoft "WHP" API framework that we are using when running in Hyper-V mode.

It's our understanding that there will be improvements here, but they will only show up in new builds of Windows and I don't suspect they will be backported.

[aleswalker]

Thanks for the reply Mike. I'll stop trying to get it to work then.