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Some of my virtual machines in VMWare (Windows guests) only work when 'Virtual machine platform' is disabled in 'Optional windows features'

This in turn breaks WSL

Anyone else encountered this.

This error on windows guests I have with it enabled is doesn't supported nested VMs (Module HV failed to start)

something hypervisor related.

Clearly not used on my other VMs

Is there no way around this.

I have all virtualisation features on in BIOS

I am running the current version of VMWare workstation Pro (16.2.3 build-19376536 as of 02/04/2022)

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  • VMware Player/Workstation has improved compatibility with the Windows Hypervisor Platform with each version. Is your VMware software up to date? // Do you actually need nested virtualization in your VMs?
    – Daniel B
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 11:26
  • VMware uptodate. But I have an idea to disable hypervisor in the vm via bcdedit see if that helps
    – MANICX100
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 11:51
  • @MANICX100 I believe that's going to disable WSL2
    – NotTheDr01ds
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 12:42
  • “Anyone else encountered this.” - What version of VMWare are you using. Be as specific as possible. Only the supported and current versions of VMWare Hypervisor products support VMP.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 18:26
  • The current version of VMWare Workstation supports Hyper-V being enabled. This configuration requires a supported version of Windows. Check the VMWare website for which versions are supported
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 18:31

1 Answer 1

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When WSL2 is enabled, the "Virtual Machine Platform" feature is turned on in Windows. This is a subset of Hyper-V functionality, which enables a type 1 hypervisor. Once this is enabled, Windows itself is actually running inside the hypervisor.

As a result, VMWare is a "nested" (type 2) hypervisor attempting to run inside the VMP type 1 hypervisor.

In order for this to work, you'll need all of the components involved to support the Nested Virtualization feature.

This apparently requires:

Alternatively, you should still be able to run WSL1 at the same time as VMWare, since WSL1 does not use virtualization.

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  • Nested virtualization does not actually require 21H2, it’s more like 20H2, since VMP support was added in a minor update to VMWare Workstation 15 back in late 2019 early 2020. However, 1909 and 20H1 are not supported, so your probably should just install 21H2
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 18:29
  • @Ramhound That's a good point - For Intel at least, right? I'm on AMD, and I think nested virtualization for AMD wasn't added until 21H2, right?
    – NotTheDr01ds
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 19:06
  • I don’t believe that’s accurate
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 21:10
  • @Ramhound It seems we're both wrong in this case. Nested virtualization support for AMD processors was in Insider builds as early as 2020, but the feature wasn't released on Windows 10. It requires Windows 11. I know , I know - Reddit isn't the best "source", but all I can find is a lot of announcements about AMD nested-virt when it came to Insider, but no report of it ever being in any released Windows version.
    – NotTheDr01ds
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 21:24
  • If it was in a pre-Windows 11 Windows 10 Insider Previews build I can understand the lack of information. Those Builds before Windows 11 was announcement are a black hole of information, there were many features that were supposed to come to Windows 10 21H2 that never happened due to the divergence of Windows 11. I expect some time in the future we might see some minor changes and/or features from Windows 11 come to Windows 10 provided Windows 10 22H2 doesn’t happen (yeah I know that doesn’t make sense either but I have my reasons) of course I put $2,000 on a bet on Windows on Apple M1. Oops
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 23:22

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