VMs with identical Configuration dont have identical hardware?

[Hans Meiser]

Hello,

my Environment is VCenter/ESXi 8.0 Update 3j on UCSB-B200-M5 (Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6152 CPU @ 2.10GHz)

I have 2 Windows Server 2019 on same ESXi Host with same settings. Especially VBS ist activated on both VMs. Both VMs have same version of v. hardware, same features and sizes, same OS.

Recently i ran a script to check if VBS is activated in VMWare Settings and CPU of VM has virtualisationfeatures (VMX). I do this by running powershell:

(Get-CimInstance Win32_Processor).VirtualizationFirmwareEnabled

Get-CimInstance Win32_Processor |
Select Name, VirtualizationFirmwareEnabled, VMMonitorModeExtensions

To my surpriese i get different results on VMs with same configuration.  VM A shows "true" in output VM B shows "false". How ist this possible? I compared even the vmx files, but found no significant differences. I tested other Windows OS like 2022 and 2025. here also different results, while Server 2022 ist ok and shows virtualisation enabled, server 2025 shows CPU virtual features as disabled. I also compared with coreinfo.exe from sysinternals. checks by coreinfo.exe are appropriate to the powershell tests. So that's a mystery to me.

But in all cases i can start VBS and HVCI within Windows, which should not possible if CPU does not have v-Features.
Somebody able to explain this behaviour?

Thanks,
Hans

[Allan Solomon Mejia]

Hello Hans,

This behavior can occur even when two VMs appear to have identical hardware and configuration. The PowerShell properties VirtualizationFirmwareEnabled and VMMonitorModeExtensions are populated by the guest OS and don't always reliably reflect the virtual CPU capabilities exposed by ESXi, especially when VBS, Hyper-V, or different Windows Server builds are involved.

 

Since both VMs can successfully enable VBS/HVCI, the required virtualization extensions (VT-x/AMD-V with EPT/RVI) are clearly being presented to the guest. I'd be more inclined to suspect a difference in the Windows detection logic rather than a VMware CPU presentation issue.

 

A few things to compare:

• Whether both VMs are running the same Windows Server build and cumulative updates.
• The VM's Compatibility (virtual hardware version) and whether "Expose hardware-assisted virtualization to the guest OS" is enabled.
• Whether Hyper-V, Credential Guard, or other virtualization-based security features were installed or enabled in a different order.
• The output of systeminfo.exe, which often provides a more reliable indication of Hyper-V and virtualization requirements than the CIM properties alone.
  

If coreinfo.exe -v reports the expected virtualization features and both VMs can run VBS/HVCI, I'd trust those results over the VirtualizationFirmwareEnabled property.