Intel VT-x/EPT is not supported

[davjones]

I installed VMware Workstation 16.2x on a new Windows 11 Laptop.  Intel VT-x/VT-d/TXT/DEP are enabled. Hyper-V is not installed. Booting up a VM that requires nested VMs (Cisco modeling labs and EVE-NG) gives an error that "Virtualized Intel VT-x/EPT is not supported on this platform." This is a Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 11th Gen 4, CPU - Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11950H @ 2.60GHz 2.61 GHz

[davjones]

Oh yeah, I meant to add, the installer indicates it detected the host has Hyper-V or Device/Credential Guard enabled. I definitely do not have Hyper-V installed and I cannot find any references to Device/Credential Guard. I've tried with and without the Windows Hypervisor Platform it asks to install. Again, the Hyper-V role is NOT installed.

[davjones]

Weird. I've gone through and disabled Device/Credential Guard via Group Policy to be sure it would not be enabled. It was previously set to not configured. Currently I do not have Hyper-V or VMware Workstation installed. When I run System Info, it indicates "A hypervisor has been detected. Features required for Hyper-V will not be displayed." This tells me the OS thinks there is a hypervisor installed. I'm thinking this is also causing VMware problems. I have been through the Services and nothing seems obvious.

[davjones]

I'm beginning to think that this is an issue with BitLocker. I tried temporarily disabling Secure Boot as it seems it relies upon some virtualization features, but I was asked for a recovery key. This is a new personal laptop. Not sure I want to go through the headache of disabling BitLocker yet to run these VMs. I would like to figure out if that is the issue prior to jumping down that rabbit hole.

[davjones]

Cool, I resolved the issue. A feature in Windows Security was using the virtualization components in the BIOS preventing VMware from accessing it. I turned off "Firmware protection". After doing so, System Information quit reporting that a hypervisor was detected. Sure enough the install of VMware Workstation went through with no reported issues and both my Cisco Modeling Labs and EVE-NG Pro VMs boot just fine! I do still have BitLocker enabled so that was not the culprit.

In Windows 11, to disable firmware protection:

Windows Security | Device security | Core isolation | Firmware protection

FYI, System Information still does not report that a hypervisor was detected even while running VMs in Workstation.

[alitroy]

that really was useful  for me thanks 

[VMware Community Member]

Hi,

I also had to disable the Windows feature "Microsoft Defender Application Guard".

HTH, cheers!

[Douglas Bowen]

Nice find to share, thanks!