W2008 R2 VMS in ESXi 4.1 host, BSOD after updating

[RoberDrive]

Hi everyone, today I just realized and issue that is wondering me and don't know when it started happening and why.

I have several ESXi 4.1 hosts with several VMs since years, most of the machines run W2008 R2 SP1.

Suddenly, after running windows update on those VMs they stuck on a BSOD loop and don't start. Trying to access safe mode gets the same result. The only way to start the VMs is to access the recovery console command prompt and uninstall the patches installed. It doesn't matter if you install only one patch or several through Windows update. I thought it was related to a new VM but I am just having same error with another one in another host after updating.

Error in BSOD is 0x0000007E and it doesn't show any sys file related or any other additional information.

Any idea???.

Thanks in advance

[daphnissov]

Your ESXi version is so ancient the best guess is that Microsoft is issuing some patch which doesn't play nice with the underlying hypervisor code–possibly related to the version of VMware tools. No way to help that other than you upgrading your hypervisor or getting these VMs onto a newer one. Don't expect to never update your hypervisor, patch your guests with new updates, and to not have an issue. Software just doesn't work that way.

[RoberDrive]

Thanks for your comments.

Unfortunately I cannot update hosts for now so do you think some of these could help to avoid stop updates?:

- Uninstall VMware tools

- Move VMs (Versión 7) into a ESXi 6.0 host (Versión 9)

Thank you

[daphnissov]

Unfortunately I cannot update hosts for now so do you think some of these could help to avoid stop updates?:

- Uninstall VMware tools

Nope, that's not an option

- Move VMs (Versión 7) into a ESXi 6.0 host (Versión 9)

Maybe?

Otherwise, you're just going to have to suspend Windows updates. Alternatively, open a support case with Microsoft and pray they help you.

[RoberDrive]

Noted, many thanks.