Server 2016 Hyper-V host in vsphere fails to boot

[DanielThomson]

I am trying to create a virtual hyper-v host in my vsphere lab.

I have created the Server 2016 standard VM and then added the Hyper-V role.

The install completes but on the reboot after the install completes the VM hangs at the windows boot splash screen.

There are a couple of posts on how to do this setup and I have made sure I have implemented the changes required to run a hyper-V host but I cannot get the VM to boot up.

Does anybody have any suggestions on where I can check to possibly find out why the VM is failing to boot?

The VM Version is 11 and I am running ESXi 6.0.0, 3380124 on both BL685c G7 host servers.

[vijayrana968]

Make sure you have enabled VM >  Edit Settings > CPU > Check the box Expose hardware assisted virtualization to the guest OS.

Also check the disk, cpu and memory resources are sufficient for the VM. Check the space of datastore as well.

[vembutech1]

Windows 2016 Nested virtualisation is fully supported in Windows 2016 Hyper - V environment, and mixed reports on ESXi environment. Probably you can test this feature with Windows 2016 Hyper -V server, which is a free product.

[bluefirestorm]

Based on the log it appears the guestOS setting is still Windows Server 2016 (windows9srv-64).

You should set this to HyperV.

As strange as it may sound, just that one line can cause VMware VMs fail to boot or crash altogether during boot just because the installed OS and specified OS settings do not match.

You can edit the vmx (use something like Notepad++). Just be careful not to trip up with the smart quotes if you use macOS Text Edit.

guestOS = "winhyperv"

After updating the vmx you should see something like this and your nested Hyper-V VM should boot up.

If you haven't seen/read this Running Nested VMs , it is a must read. But it has not been updated since the author has left VMware.

[DanielThomson]

I did try this at one point. But after setting the guestOS to winhyperv it wouldnt boot the VM.

I am going to try and rebuild this VM from scratch again and will try this vmx setting again.

Will update later in the week.

[DanielThomson · Accepted solution]

I tried rebuilding the virtual server and still had the same issue. A colleague built a datacentre edition 2016 server and managed to install Hyper-V and get the server to boot up.

This server was built on our Intel server rather than the AMD blade servers, but other than the OS edition and underlying hardware - there is no difference in the setup.