ESX 4.1 or ESXi 4.1 inside VMWorkstation 7.0, can't create x64 bit Windows Guest OS in any of the ESX versions

[Dipak]

Here is what i have...

Laptop OS : Windows 7 x64

Laptop CPU : Intel i7 Q720, BIOS enabled for Intel-VT

VM Workstation Version 7

I successfully installed ESX 4.1 and ESXi 4.1 as guest OS in VMware Workstation 7 and they are running perfectly fine.

Note: I installed the ESX server after adding this monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE" in the VMX file and changing the virtualization engine to Intel VT-x in vmworkstation setting for the guest.

However after installing the ESX or ESXi when i am checking the CPU, it tells me that it does NOT supports Virtualization. I am running this command on the ESX hosts which returns the value as ZERO, i guess for supported CPUs should return value 3, any help would be really appreciated.

~ # esxcfg-info |grep "HV Support"

         |----HV Support............................................0

The output of the HV Support command indicates the type of Hyper-visor support available. These are the descriptions for the possible values:0 - VT/AMD-V indicates that support is not available for this hardware.
1 - VT/AMD-V indicates that VT or AMD-V might be available but it is not supported for this hardware.
2 - VT/AMD-V indicates that VT or AMD-V is available but is currently not enabled in the BIOS.
3 - VT/AMD-V indicates that VT or AMD-V is enabled in the BIOS and can be used.

[DSTAVERT]

It isn't possibe to to have 64 bit guests in a nested virtual environment. ESX(i) inside workstation

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

The physical hardware vitualization capability is not passed through to the guest.

[Dipak]

Thanks David for the clarification.

[TomHaz]

Hi

I'm running Workstation 8 with ESXi 4.1 on it. I have just got around putting (well attempting) 64-bit eval Windows OSes on my ESXi system and, as explained here, it fails (I have a Q8400 that does support 64-bit).

Has there been any fix/patch for this in Workstation 8 yet or is it intrinsic to the product and nothing can be done ?

My options now appear to be install directly on Workstation and network with my ESXi VM clients (not really the same as running it all under an ESXi host) or get a new machine to install ESXi directly to.

Any comments gratefully received.

Cheers

Tom

[admin]

Virtualized VT-x is required for nested 64-bit guests, and hardware EPT is required for virtualized VT-x.  The Q8400 does not have support for EPT.

[TomHaz]

Thanks for the very prompt reply - exactly the definitive (unfortunately) answer I was looking for. Done a bit of research so understand it better now, also found this thread http://communities.vmware.com/thread/330916 that explains it as well.

Bit of a nuisance as the whoel purpose of using Workstation was to be able to run a simple ESXi test environment without having to research a hardware compatible cheap PC to it - bah !  I am due to treat myself to a laptop upgrade soon so that being an i7 will solve that, it's just whether I worry about upgrading the CPU in my PC to one with EPT or just run 64 bit stuff directly in Workstation and miss out on the memory management in ESXi.

Thanks again.