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ac884b
Contributor
Contributor

VMware Workstation 15.5.6 does not support nested virtualization.

Hello,
Since the release of Windows 2004 and VMWare Workstation 15.5.5 using Hyper-V together with VMWare became possible.

Hyper-V on windows is a requirement for a lot of Windows features, such as Device Guard, Credential Guard, Windows Sandbox, WSL and others, it is awesome that we can also use VMWare with the latest release.

However, one cannot use all these features on a VM if Hyper-V is enabled on the host machine because when the VMware's virtualization engine features "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI" and "Virtualize IOMMU" are enabled it throws the error "VMware Workstation does not support nested virtualization on this host".
I have looked at a similar thread(VMware Workstation does not support nested virtualization on this host. ) but this is just a workaround which requires disabling Hyper-V.
This is somehow limiting the advertised feature that when using Windows 2004 and VMware Workstation 15.5.5 and above Hyper-V and VMware will be compatible.

My question is is there any way or is it planned, at least, adding support for "nested virtualization" or in other words using VMware's virtualization features together with Hyper-V enabled?

error.png

OS: Windows 2004

VMware Workstation: 15.5.6

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8 Replies
RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

Try running the latest Tech Preview of Workstation on Windows 10 2004 hosts for those features.

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

RDPetruska​, I mentioned in another thread, but we shipped Hyper-V support in Workstation 15.5.5. Folks don't need TP. The delta between 15.5.5 and TP20H2-July is 'vctl' and DX11.

However, one does need a Skylake or newer CPU:

Windows 10 host VBS support:  VMware Workstation 15.5.5 now runs on Windows hosts with Hyper-V features (For example: virtualization based security) enabled.

The followings are minimum requirement to run VMware Workstation on a Hyper-V enabled host:

CPU Requirements:

  • Intel Sandy Bridge or a newer CPU
  • AMD Bulldozer or a newer CPU

Supported Host Operating Systems:

  • Windows 10 20H1 build 19041.264 or newer

From: VMware Workstation 15.5.5 Pro Release Notes

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Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Regarding nesting, this is a limitation of Microsoft's WHP APIs. We expect to see this improve this over time, but I can't fault them too hard for not being as awesome as our much-more-mature hypervisor stack. We literally test ESXi inside Workstation, so it's always been more important to us.

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Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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tgrodano
Contributor
Contributor

I have VMWare Workstation 15.5.6, host machine is Windows 10 with 20H2 update, and a Sandybridge CPU (Xeon E3-1270 v5), and Intel VT settings enabled in the bios. The VM I'm trying to run is Windows 10 build 2004. When I enable "Virtualize Intel VT-xEPT" option in VM settings and try to run the VM, I get error "VMware Workstation does not support nested virtualization on this host".

Based on the reply above from Mikero and the link below, I get the impression that it should work, but it does not:  https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2020/05/vmware-workstation-now-supports-hyper-v-mode.html

So should this work?

 

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cloudMan2
Contributor
Contributor

The issue may appear due to VM configuration... ensure you don't have any 'Virtualization engine' options checked under VM processor configuration.

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MonkeyStory
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I need to use Nested Virtualization for testing purpose. So, where is the problem? Windows or VMware? There is any workaround?

Disabling "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI" for is not a solution.

Thanks.

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Vishal32
Contributor
Contributor

I have the same problem. I need to use Nested Virtualization. Can someone help me with the fix? 

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ac884b
Contributor
Contributor

Hey 🙂

Two years later still no progress on this 😕 I am working for an organization which manages the device and runs hyper-v and Device Guard.
I do have VM Workstation Pro but there is no way for me to get Credential Guard running on a Virtual Machine. 

Any possible workaround, tips or expected feature update in the coming century ?

Thanks !

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