Lashup of my issue:

1. Host is Windows 10 - latest - all patches, yada yada. Host running VMW 17.0.2.

2. Guest is Server 2022.

3. Guest is running for months perfectly with Processors = 4.  2 Proc 2 Cores = Total Processor Cores = 4.

4. I need a little boost. So I power off the guest machine. Up the processors to 4 / 2 = Total Processor Cores = 8. Start VM. Result = BSOD (see below.) Inaccessible_Boot_Device.

5. Kicker is that it also wrecks the disk chain. See pic 2. 

6. No way to recover the guest except from nicely made backup. Zero snapshots work after this. If there are Zero snapshots it doesn't matter, the guest is dead anyway; no recovery.

7. 100% reproducable again and again on this VM.  Reproducable when guest has snapshots OR guest has ZERO snapshots.

7b. Reproducable with ANY change to virtual CPU. Not just the desired increase.

8. Can change memory OK... but not processors.

9. NOTE: I am NOT trying to LIVE change the processors. Guest is nicely DOWN; THEN processors change.

Let me know what you'd like me to attach; and I'll do it for analysis. Thanks Team !