Increase Memory while VM is Running

[Wajeeh]

Dear Experts,

I have a question for adding more memory to a VM while it is running. We have a VM with guest OS of Win 2008 R2 x64. When creating this VM we gave 4GB Mem. to it, but now the requirement is more and we want to add more 4GB so total 8GB.

I need to know is there a way possible to increase the memory while machine is ON? I checked this, right click on VM and say edit settings> there memory choice is grayed out, to me it seems it is not possible. Need to know from experts if that is possible.

Kind Regards,

[vmroyale]

Windows 2003/2008 ENT or DC is required as well as the memory/cpu hotplug option in the VM. If you are seeing the setting greyed out, then a power off will be required.

[Wajeeh]

I have Esxi 4, I powered off VM and was able to change settings enable them for hot add/ hot plug but when tried to do operation while VM is on got error, you don't have license. I am using Win 2008 R2 standard edition 64 bit.

[rickardnobel]

It could both be that you don't have the VMware license for hotplug of CPU/RAM and also you must have the correct license for the VM operating system, which I am quite sure that you need Windows Enterprise edition for this.

[GFK]

You will need Windows Enterprise or Data Center edition for this. Standard edition will not work. :smileysad:

[Troy_Clavell]

...and while the guest is off you can configure the hot plug options as well... Edit Setting--Options Tab--Memory/CPU Hotplug

[aravinds3107]

If you have enterprise license you could enabled Hot Add feature while you power OFF the VM this time so you could change the memory/CPU online from next time.

to do this

EDIT Settings->Options->Under Advanced Memory/CPU Hot Plug

[rickardnobel]

It is a somewhat bad default in my opinion with the Hot Add disabled. Quite often when you actually need it the VM has not the option set and would still require a reboot to enable the possibility to hot add RAM. It could be set in a Template of course, but many customers has not done so.

[Wajeeh]

No, I don't have license for hot add as I am using Esxi 4 which is a free one and so it does not support hot add/hot plug