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  • 1.  Compatibility ESXi 7.0 U2 version 19 hangs at boot windows logo

    Posted May 07, 2021 08:24 PM

    I have several fully patched Windows 2016, 2019, and Windows 10 machines that will not boot after upgrading compatibility to ESXi 7.0 U2 version 19.  They will just hang at the blue windows logo screen forever.

    These machines do have VBS enabled but it doesn't matter if I turn it off before or after upgrading compatibility, it won't boot after either way.  Other VMs that didn't have that set seem to upgrade fine.

    So far I have to restore a snapshot to get the VMs working again.  Any ideas how to fix this?

    ESXi VersionHypervisorBuild

    7.0.2
    VMware ESXi
    17867351


  • 2.  RE: Compatibility ESXi 7.0 U2 version 19 hangs at boot windows logo

    Posted Aug 23, 2021 12:21 PM

    It had the exact same issue. VM stuck at Windows boot logo. Could successfully solve this problem by manually editing the vmx file and changing virtual hardware version from 19 (18 on a different VM) both to 17. Unregistering VM and re-registering with "new" vmx-file let my VM's boot correctly. Hope this helps.. good luck.



  • 3.  RE: Compatibility ESXi 7.0 U2 version 19 hangs at boot windows logo

    Posted Dec 17, 2022 09:46 PM

    VBS is only supported on Intel CPUs with 2016 according to this documentation: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.security.doc/GUID-8361F64B-DE1D-4FF1-A9FC-4DDE7056DC23.html I had 2016 VMs running fine on Intel CPUs with VBS enabled, but when I migrated them to AMD CPUs (Rome series) they stopped booting. I had to disable VBS and the IOMMU feature under CPU configuration to enable them to boot.



  • 4.  RE: Compatibility ESXi 7.0 U2 version 19 hangs at boot windows logo

    Posted Jan 13, 2024 04:28 PM

    Thank you for this!  Also going through a host refresh from intel Xeon to AMD EPYC and could not figure out what was keeping our last remaining Win2016 servers from booting until I read this.  We had one on our initial refresh that worked fine and it was VM19 so I knew that wasnt it.  Turned off VBS, secure boot, anything I could think of... nothing worked... until I/O MMU!  Much appreciated!