Workstation 16.1.2 Pro, under Windows 11 host, Windows guest in VM crashes on startup

[dsesdg]

This Reddit post sums up this issue well:  https://www.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/ph590g/vm_does_not_start_on_workstation_1612_pro_windows/

Basically using Workstation Pro 16.1.2 on a Windows 11 host, if you create a Windows guest VM, and the host system has Hyper-V enabled in any form (in my case its present because I have WSL2 enabled in the host), and if you have more than one processor and/or one core per processor selected for the guest, the Windows guest VM crashes at boot:

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (vcpu-0)

Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.

A log file is available in "C:\Users\test\Documents\Virtual Machines\Windows 10 x64\vmware.log".

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In my case, I'm running this all on the released Windows 11 using an AMD Ryzen 5950x.  This same host configuration works without issue under Windows 10 (multiple processors, multiple threads per processor, etc.)  Also, if I disable and remove all instances of WSL2/Hyper-V on the Windows 11 host, then everything works fine in the guest with multiple threads enabled.

A similar issue appears to have been reported here back three months ago as well:  https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/VMWARE-16-1-2-on-Windows-11-host/m-p/285495...

It may be interesting to note that I also have several Linux guests running in the same host, and they work without issue (one processor, 32 threads per processor).  So this appears to be related only to Windows guest operation in this host configuration.  It doesn't matter if the guest installation is Windows 10 or Windows 11, the crash is the same.  

It'd be great to learn if VMware is working on this issue for an update soon...it's unfortunate that I can only run Windows guests using one core + one thread, on a 32 thread machine...

Thank you!

[joelteixeira]

Same problem here on a 5800x. With 1 core only my VM became unusable.

I hope VMWare fix this soon.  

EDIT: Even with one processor and one core I faced the issue again. My VM runs but crashed randomly. 

[T00dl3s_2k]

Same Problem here on different Platforms (Intel and AMD CPUs) - All with Win 11 though.

The most annoying thing about this is that you don't even get a single reaction from VMWare about this.

I've payed 350 € as of now for a Software that I can't use und only God knows when the next Update might drop.....

[redsolja]

Is it possible that the issue is connected to upgrading from Windows 10 and not doing a clean install? I haven't done a clean install of W11 and I am having various issues that need some kind of "reset", such as bluetooth.

[joelteixeira]

I don't think so. I did a clean install and still have the issue. 

[dsesdg]

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@redsolja wrote:

Is it possible that the issue is connected to upgrading from Windows 10 and not doing a clean install? I haven't done a clean install of W11 and I am having various issues that need some kind of "reset", such as bluetooth.

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No - I did a clean install of W11 and ran into these problems.

I also have noticed that even while using the workaround (running the Windows Guest with 1 core + 1 thread) I still encounter random crashes...

[gkobler]

My system with W11 are a clean installation, but it doesn't work. My Notebook was an update from W10 to W11, there it works fine.

Difference too, the Desktop PC has an AMD Cpu, the Notebook an Intel Cpu. May different drivers?

[T00dl3s_2k]

No, it is connected to WSL, or more in General to Hyper-V Virtualisation. As soon as you use some Part of Hyper-V on your System All Windows VMs inside VMWare will crash. If you deactivate all Hyper-V Options from the Windows Features it will work again.

Sucks for me since I use WSL - right now I have only the choice between using WSL OR VMWare......

At first my Installation was an Upgrade from Win 10, after that I did a clean Install of Win 11. The behavior stayed the same.

[Ideal254545]

I wanted to bump this because im experiencing this also, its an issue with nested virtualization with hypervisor on, this has been resolved with windows 11 but vmware has not updated to support it yet in Workstation, is there anyway we can get a comment from the vmware team on this?

[redsolja]

How do you know it is resolved with Windows 11? It works with Windows 10 and same vmware version.

[sterkey25]

I am also having this issue. They were working OK until I installed Linux on a second drive for dual boot. After running VMs on the Linux box, I could no longer boot to them in Windows 11. The only way I can get them to boot is to set them to use 1 CPU 1 Core. The cbdedit fix did not work for me. I also cannot get them to boot in Linux now which is strange. I am not sure if it has something to do with BIOS. Would RAID or AHCI impact loading a VM?

[Qlippoth]

I noticed VM file corruption and loss after several attempts at starting a VM with multiple vCPUs. If you have backups I would pick one to revert to and see if the backup runs fine. I had one that wouldn't start anymore, and one that would start, but keeps asking me to locate a file that is present and hasn't moved.

[arpan9rec]

I have done a clean W11 install, same issue 😕

[sterkey25]

I am going to reinstall Windows 10 and dual boot when I get home. If they work OK in Win 10 then I can roll with that until this gets sorted out. I will post as a followup to see if it helps in regards to this being an OS issue or a VM issue.

[arpan9rec]

Looking forward to this, I am counting on you sir :P. Then I have to plan a big rollback.

[Qlippoth]

I’m using Workstation 16.2.0 just fine in Windows 10 while I wait for a fix in Win 11 before I go back Must be some issue with Hyper-V and VMWare coexisting in Win 11 that isn’t handled correctly compared to Win 10…

[awconrad]

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe this will work for anybody using AMD CPUs as Windows 10 does not support it 😞

[Qlippoth]

Above I state I have issues with my AMD 5800X and Windows 11 (both upgraded from Windows 10 and fresh Windows 11 installs). But Windows 10 on the same machine works fine. I have Hyper-V enabled, WSL, Core Isolation/Memory Integrity, etc. all working fine on Windows 10. I forgot what I did for Windows 10 to allow both VMware and Hyper-V. Did we need to do anything, or was it automatic by VMWare Workstation installation?

[sterkey25]

Like someone else said, they fired up no problem on Windows 10. I just partitioned the drive and gave it about 40 gigs since it should only be for running my VMs. Its not the most convenient to dual boot between Windows versions, but its not the end of the world until they roll out an update for Windows 11.

[DF_01]

I just posted about my experience using Windows 10...the VM crashes on startup.

[ameft]

I'm here just to confirm that I'm also suffering from the same issue in my new Windows 11 install where I'm trying to make coexist WSL2 and VMware WS 16.2.

In Windows Features I have Virtual Machine Platform enabled and Virtual Hypervisor Platform disabled.

After testing a few configurations this is the only one that worked:

I didn't tested the performances but I suspect they're poor with this configuration...

EDIT: I can leave Virtualize IOMMU on, and as someone else noted it's possible to have multiple cores per processors on Linux VMs but not on Windows one, at least not on my Win11 VM inside Win11 host.