Nested Virtualization Issues on VMware Workstation Pro 25 + Windows 11 25H2

[Stefor]

Hi all,
I'm running into serious issues with nested virtualization on VMware Workstation Pro 25.0.0.24995812 on Windows 11 25H2 host with an Intel i7-14700 CPU. Despite the CPU supporting VT-x and IOMMU, some guest VMs that require an internal hypervisor crash immediately.

Main symptoms:

• The only hypervisor that reliably runs is VirtualBox, but performance is poor.

• VMware Workstation crashes with logs similar to:

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (vcpu-3)
Exception 0x80000003 (debug breakpoint) has occurred.

• The logs include references to modules like igdml64.dll (Intel GPU driver) and vmware-vmx.exe, indicating unrecoverable panics.

Important detail:

• A Windows 7 ISO inside the nested VM would boot without crashing.

• This suggests the issue is specific to Windows 11 25H2, modern drivers, or internal Workstation conflicts, not nested virtualization itself.

Configuration and settings verified:

• CPU: Intel i7-14700

• Host OS: Windows 11 25H2

• VMware Workstation Pro: 25.0.0.24995812

• Hyper-V: disabled

• Windows Hypervisor Platform & Virtual Machine Platform: disabled

• WSL2: disabled

• Nested virtualization: enabled

• IOMMU and "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT" enabled in VM

  • Note: IOMMU must be enabled; otherwise, the nested Windows VM BSODs immediately on boot.

What I have tried without success:

• bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

• Disabling VBS (Virtualization-Based Security)

• Disabling Core Integrity

• Updating Intel GPU drivers

Questions for the community:

1. Has anyone experienced similar behavior with Workstation 25 + Windows 11 25H2 on recent i7 CPUs?

2. Are there any reliable workarounds to get nested virtualization working in this scenario?

3. Could the issue be related to Intel GPU drivers or kernel security features, even with Hyper-V, VBS, and WSL2 disabled?

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Attachment(s)

vmware.log   477 KB 1 version

[RaSystemlord]

See the 7 step instructions, even from today in another post. It is painful to disable everything that is required for Nested case.

[Stefor]

I also ran the DG_Readiness_Tool with -Disable.

All Device Guard / Credential Guard registry keys are already absent,
and SIPolicy.p7b does not exist, which confirms that VBS and Code Integrity
are fully disabled.

this is the command output:

PS C:\Users\PC\Desktop\dgreadiness_v3.6> .\DG_Readiness_Tool_v3.6.ps1 -Disable
###########################################################################
Readiness Tool Version 3.4 Release.
Tool to check if your device is capable to run Device Guard and Credential Guard.
###########################################################################
Disabling Device Guard and Credential Guard
Deleting RegKeys to disable DG/CG
Errore: Impossibile trovare la chiave del Registro di sistema o il valore specificato.
Errore: Impossibile trovare la chiave del Registro di sistema o il valore specificato.
del : Impossibile trovare il percorso 'C:\WINDOWS\System32\CodeIntegrity\SIPolicy.p7b' perché non esiste.
In riga:1 car:1
+ del  "$env:windir\System32\CodeIntegrity\SIPolicy.p7b"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (C:\WINDOWS\Syst...ty\SIPolicy.p7b:String) [Remove-Item], ItemNotFoundEx
   ception
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

Disabling Hyper-V and IOMMU
Disabling Hyper-V failed please check the log file

Please reboot the machine, for settings to be applied.
PS C:\Users\PC\Desktop\dgreadiness_v3.6>

Hyper-V was already disabled as well.

At this point, Windows is running without any hypervisor or virtualization
security layer, so there is no possible Windows-side conflict with VMware.

Given that the hardware is modern and fully supports VT-x/EPT and IOMMU,
this strongly points to a VMware Workstation Pro issue rather than
a hardware limitation or misconfiguration.

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[Morc001]

Stefor, did you follow this guide: https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/how-to-disable-hyper-v-in-windows-11-24h2 Hpyer-V feature does not equal virtualization based security (VBS). Disabling the Hyper-V feature does not make VBS go away, thus preventing VMWare from using nested virtualization by using the CPU's features that support it.

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[kasper]

Microsoft has introduced a new security setting in the past couple of months of patch Tuesday updates.   It is in Settings / Privacy Security / Windows Security / etc.   It is something like 'Secure Boot'.   I leave it up to you to do the DD to find it as I no longer use Windows 11 as a host.   From what I saw it ran an embedded version of Hyper-V so all the other stuff you did has no effect.   What has an effect is if you just uncheck it and nested virtualization works.  

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[RaSystemlord]

I'm with kasper in this, because I don't use Nested Virtualization and thus don't have first hand experience. Personally, I wouldn't use Windows if I needed something like this - it looks like an endless hassle even if it first works.

However, neither of the posters have explicitly told that they have done what the 7 step instructions explain.

Also, BIOS has to have virtualization enabled.

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