Hi, my first post because I have not been able to answer this myself.

This current setup is installed in a SMB, as such the company has an essentials license (3 host).  So whatever I do here has to work on an essentials license.

I have used ESXi on IBMs in this company for years now, from ESXi 4 and now on 7 U3.  In 12 years of running ESXi on IBMs, we have only once had any downtime on a backup server related to VMware.  This is rock solid software.

I have installed the Product Evaluation Center for VMware vSphere 7.0 Update3d and it works a treat on our current IBM/Lenovo servers.  No upgrade issues from 6.7 U3.  Some performance tuning to get ESXi 7 going well on a brand new SR650, but going like a rocket. 

Mostly the company runs Windows servers and Linux mail systems.  But there are a handful of Win 10 VMs.

The question is of course about TPM on Win 11...  I understand that vTPM is only supported on enterprise licenses?  What about SMBs running essentials?  If we are unable to run a couple of Win 11 VMs on our vSphere that is a showstopper.  I don't want to hack the install, because MS is likely to cease support for the OS upgrades etc.

I run into the error "The host does not support Native key provider"

The SR650 has a TPM 2.0 installed.  Can this be used directly by VMs running on hosts in vCenter Server essentials? If so, how?

Thanks